Wild and Sweet
by ShinyShiny9
Summary: Christmas is coming; the semi-apocalyptic city looks a little better under snowfall, the air has a certain chill, and nobody in either Ninjago or the First Realm has any chill at all.
1. Dragon Kids are Gettin Nuttin for Xmas

**Me: Say guys, what should I write for Christmas?  
** **Everyone: Happy fluffy things about decorating and snow and stuff!  
** **Me: Did you say "soul-sucking angst about trauma and suffering and tragic age-old hatred"?  
** **Everyone: NO  
** **Me: I'm hearing yes.**

 **I'm so sorry, everyone! Especially to those who suggested things for a Christmas fic over in "Fantastic Mr. Walker." I did love all your suggestions, and there will be plenty of happy stuff in this fic, promise! It'll have fluff and humor and all the rest, and it'll end happily. But I also wanted to have some serious parts, because I dunno. Feels right, the way things are going these days.**

 **A special thank you to FireLord54, who contributed several of the plot points/themes in this fic. And also to everyone who made suggestions on "Fantastic Mr. Walker"—I'll try to work in as many of them as I can!**

 **Also,** **the trailer for Season 10 seems to show Faith riding Firstbourne (and believe me, it does my frosty old heart _so much_ good to see it), so I don't know if Season 10 is gonna go ahead and contradict this whole story. But here I go anyway.**

 **Merry Christmas, folks!**

* * *

In this life, there are some rules that you'd think would be pretty obvious to everyone. For example: when in the presence of the almighty Firstbourne, mother of all dragons, dowager of the First Realm, progenitor of the First Spinjitzu Master and thus pretty much Queen of Everything **—** don't wake her from a well-deserved nap. Especially not by snapping her across the snout with a tail full of spines.

Lightning, the little idiot, did not understand this rule at all. He'd been harassing Earth until the much larger, heavier dragon finally lumbered to his feet and went after him. While fleeing, he'd made a tight turn with a dramatically lashing tail, and Firstbourne had jolted awake with a snort.

Now Lightning knew his goose was cooked. He backed up against the wall and cowered meekly, waiting for Dragon Mom to come after him with a metaphorical sandal. Earth settled back on his haunches to watch, rumbling amusedly.

Firstbourne was comfortable where she lay, however. After glaring pointedly at Lightning for a minute, she finally gave an irritated snort and settled her head back onto her foreclaws. She stayed awake, though, luxuriating. From the corner of her eye she saw Lightning recover his good spirits, make three giant bounds across the cave, and crashland on top of Earth. Earth gave an indignant roar, but Firstbourne only closed her eyes, sighing. And they called dragons the noblest of creatures.

She dozed for a while, ignoring the scuffling. Eventually she decided she wasn't going to get more sleep; yawning and scratching one hind claw under her jaw, she hoisted herself to her feet. She had some traveling to do today, might as well make a start.

Earth had by now pinned Lightning to the floor and was gnawing on the nape of his neck. Fire had joined in, tugging on the small Lung dragon's tail. Lightning was squealing as if he were being skinned alive, but he wasn't bleeding so Firstbourne considered the situation sufficiently under control. She would really have to teach those three better behavior someday, though.

As she loped towards the entrance of the dragon cave, she caught sight of two of her other offspring. Wind was curled up behind a rock formation, her head buried under Ice's wing. Ice was crooning soothingly, nuzzling along her sister's neck and rubbing her chin atop her head.

Firstbourne's eyes softened. Poor Wind. She'd always been sensitive; then she had been there to watch as the Ultra Dragon got slaughtered and eaten. More recently she'd been caught and nearly roasted alive herself. She was a nervous wreck now **—** even her own siblings frightened her. Luckily Ice, who was shy and gentle herself, was always there to comfort her.

Sighing, Firstbourne stepped over to nuzzle Wind. Then she headed back to break up the brawl between the other three dragons. Fire broke away and fled when he saw Firstbourne coming, but she had to forcibly separate Earth and Lightning. They exchanged snarls and chomps on the snout as she firmly nudged them in opposite directions, then nearly went for each others' throats again the second she turned her back. She had to get a bit loud with them.

Once her offspring were dutifully silent (though still glaring at each other), Firstbourne stopped for one last task. Near the entrance of the cave was a small alcove, elevated off the floor and safe from the dragons' shenanigans. Inside it was an egg, the size of a boulder and sporting a lustrous golden shell. Firstbourne sniffed it and tenderly turned it over with her snout. All 350 pounds of her reptilian heart seized with ferocious maternal love. It had been so long since she'd dared to lay eggs; times had been much too hard. But now things were better, and soon this egg would hatch. A new dragon youngling, hope for the future of her kind.

With a final glance over her shoulder to make sure the younger dragons were behaving, she stepped out of the cave.

The air was brisk, offsetting the heat from the lava pits. Firstbourne breathed in the refreshing breeze, then stretched, flexing her massive wingspan. She was _majestic_ , and she knew it.

She sniffed the air for signs of snow. It had been forever since the First Realm had seen a proper winter. Now that her children no longer had to fear the Dragon Hunters and could roam the realm as they pleased, the balance of nature was slowly being restored. Rain fell. Plants began to flourish in the desert. The cycle of seasons began anew.

It worked out well for the Dragon Hunters. They were able to grow crops now, and even hunt some small mammals. They survived just fine without hunting dragons **—** and always would have, if they had never started hunting in the first place.

A wave of rage rose in Firstbourne's chest, and she glowered in the direction of the Hunter village. Her nostrils flared, spouting tendrils of angry mist. So many of her children dead and gone. So many years spent hiding, fleeing, scrabbling for their lives. Powerful creatures like them, suffering and falling and dying at the hands of those miserable, pathetic little bags of unprotected flesh. _Humans_. Hunters in particular. Her contempt knew no bounds.

But she did respect one human. Let's even be generous, two. And she respected what Wu and Lloyd had asked of her: no more attacking the Hunters. The Hunters had already promised not to attack them.

So they were at peace, if not exactly a friendly one. Both sides avoided each other vigorously. And even if Firstbourne sometimes felt a powerful desire to rampage into the Hunter village and level it to charred bones and rubble **,** her inherent aversion to destruction and her promise to Wu were together enough to stop her.

Speaking of the First Spinjitzu Master's son. And his sweet little grandson too. It had been a while since she visited Ninjago's realm, and she was beginning to miss those two lone humans she respected. Besides, it was time to check on them, make sure no other world-ending disasters were brewing. They had spoken of the Oni . . .

She broke into a lope, then a gallop, building up speed to take off. As her broad wings spread and pulled her into the air, she braced herself for whatever she might find once she crossed over. The realm might already be reduced to ashes, or it might be perfectly fine. With Ninjago, it was never safe to bet.

* * *

"How do you set TINSEL on FIRE?!"

So the realm wasn't reduced to ashes yet. But the way things were going, the Ninjago City Mall soon would be.

"I don't know, I don't know, geez!" Kai beat his jacket over the pile of tinsel on the floor. Instead of going out, it went from smoldering to really blazing.

"Huh." Kai paused, blinking. "That's pretty cool."

Even Jay paused his search for a fire extinguisher. The tinsel was writhing as if alive, shriveling and melting as it burned, spewing trails of thick blue smoke.

"Yuck, what is that smell **—** " Lloyd appeared on the scene. "GUYS."

Kai and Jay started guiltily. Lloyd was already striding over to the nearest concessions booth. Hoisting the tank off a slushie machine, he slopped its contents over the fire. He frowned at the steaming remnants of the tinsel and the charred marks on the mall floor, then shook his head at his two teammates.

"Why. Just why."

"It wasn't on purpose," said Kai, shrugging.

"Bet it was," whispered Jay.

Lloyd bit back a sigh. After a moment he realized the owner of the concessions booth was staring at him.

"Oh, uhh . . . Sorry." Sheepishly he put the tank back onto the base of the slushie machine. "Little bit of an emergency there."

The booth owner waved him off resignedly. Everyone in Ninjago City was a little beyond caring these days. It had been months since Garmadon and Harumi's defeat, and the city was still struggling to pull itself back together. Almost everyone had at least some place to call home by now, and more and more businesses were reopening, but there was still a ton of work to do. The citizens of Ninjago were used to destruction (especially the ones living in Ninjago City), but they still had to admit they were getting . . . pretty tired of this.

"Can you guys reel it in?" said Lloyd, as they all began cleaning up the burned tinsel and melted shave ice. "We're supposed to help decorate the mall, not burn it to the ground."

"Hey, we're workin' for free here," said Kai. "At that price, you can't complain about the work quality." He grinned at Lloyd's disgruntled look. "Whaaat?"

"Kai, you set something on fire _again?_ " Cole came by, pulling a cart full of jumbo nutcracker statues. "By now it's starting to look like you're doing it on purpose."

"That's what I said!" chirped Jay.

"Ahhh . . . this is _boring_ , okay?" Kai plunked down on the floor and leaned on his hands, sighing. "We've been cleaning and repairing for weeks and weeks. Every day we gotta chase down more freaking looters. Now we have to do even _more_ work decorating. It never ends!"

Jay gave a scandalized gasp.

"How could you not like decorating, Kai?"

"Especially for such a good cause," said Cole. "Think of the kiddies. This is for them!"

Kai groaned, knowing his arguments were futile. It really _was_ for a good cause. The owner of Ninjago City's mall had decided that Ninjago's people, especially the children, needed some semblance of a normal Christmas this year. Extra effort had been made to repair and tidy up the mall. It was going to be decorated to the very nines, and there would be a mini ice rink, visits with Santa and his elves, a massive toy drive, and a soup kitchen on weekends. The stores would all be selling goods as cheap as possible **—** as much as possible. Supply lines to the city were still kind of patchy. There had been a whole week where there wasn't a single tube of toothpaste to be had anywhere within city limits.

At any rate, the ninja had been shanghaied into this production. Mostly Lloyd's idea.

"What do you think nutcracker statues are made of?" said Kai idly, glancing at Cole's cart.

"NO." Cole dropped the cart handle and moved to stand in front of the nutcrackers, his arms outstretched. "We're not testing if it burns, Kai."

Kai narrowed his eyes, taking this as a challenge.

"Guys, _no_. The mall owner would lynch us," sighed Lloyd.

"Nonono, shhh, I want to see this!" protested Jay. Lloyd groaned. Was he seriously the youngest person on this team?

"Hey guys, what's going on?" Nya came bounding in, accompanied by Zane, just as Kai tried to make a running assault on the nutcrackers. He attempted to skid to a halt and look innocent, but instead slipped on the spilled slushie mix and went down hard, nearly taking a stepladder with him.

"Is . . . everything all right?" said Zane uncertainly.

"It's great," sighed Lloyd. "How'd it go? Did you get the looters?"

"And **—** hey. Where's PIXAL?" Jay sat up straighter, looking between Nya and Zane. "Didn't she go with you guys?"

Kai had been lying on the floor grumbling to himself, but now he popped up on his elbows, looking anxious. Cole and Lloyd also tensed.

"She's just out looking for the mall owner," said Nya, waving placatingly. "She wanted to see what we should do next. We caught the looters just fine, everyone's okay."

Everyone relaxed again. It had been going on like this ever since the team got back from the First Realm: if someone seemed to go missing, even in the most trivial situations, a mini-panic would brew until they turned up again. They were really starting to edge into clinginess here.

"Mr. Beasley is probably gonna have new chores for us after PIXAL finds him," said Nya. "I'm going to get out of this gear first. Kai, stay away from the nutcrackers."

Kai groaned, flopping back onto the floor.

"You're getting scary, Kai," said Cole. He headed on with the nutcrackers before Kai could make any more attempts. Zane went over to help Jay with the tinsel, only to find himself sticking to the leftover slushie mix. He blinked down at his feet, bewildered. Jay stifled a snicker, while Lloyd sighed and went to fetch a mop. Once Zane had detached himself from the floor, he began working on the stepladder, while Jay handed up hooks and new boxes of tinsel.

"We will have to move the ladder soon, Kai," said Zane, stringing a few more loops from the ceiling. "Would you mind getting out of the way?"

"I'd mind," said Kai sourly.

"How 'bout helping Greenbean over there clean up after the fire _you_ started?" Jay poked a toe at Kai's side.

"I'm not the one who dumped sugar water on the floor."

"You are not being very helpful." Zane glanced down reproachfully. "Or mature."

Kai groaned and kicked at the ladder. Zane balanced easily as it wobbled, but the box of tinsel he'd been working with flipped over and fell on Kai, spilling its contents. Jay burst out laughing; after a moment Lloyd and Zane joined in.

"Whatever," said Kai muffledly. "Still not moving."

"Well, that's fine," said Jay. "Now you're festive. You can just lie here all Christmas and be part of the decorations."

"Perhaps he could sing carols as well?" suggested Zane.

"Fa, and la, and la la la," said Kai from under the box. Zane and Jay tried not to overturn the stepladder laughing. Lloyd shook his head over his mopping, chuckling softly. It felt a little strange sometimes **—** somewhere in between losing his friends to the First Realm and getting them back, he must have aged a decade or two. Now he felt kind of like a parent watching his kids playing **—** it was nice to see them having fun, but he was meant to be an observer, not a participant.

Couldn't say he hadn't missed them, though. He was determined to enjoy it . . . while he still could.

PIXAL came in next, wearing very unnecessary earmuffs. She had a body now, she liked to wear things.

"Mr. Beasley wants to talk to all of us!" she announced. She searched the group. "Where are Cole and Nya?"

"They're fine," said Lloyd. "They'll be along. We'll join you once they get back, 'kay?"

PIXAL nodded and turned back to tell Mr. Beasley. Her eyes lingered on the mound of tinsel with Kai's legs sticking out.

"Is he all right? . . . "

"We expect he'll pull through," said Zane cheerfully. PIXAL cocked an eyebrow, but she had given up asking for explanations from these people long ago. Zane looked after her as she left, glanced between her and the half-hung tinsel a few times, then slid down the ladder and trotted after her.

"Oh sure, thanks, leave me to finish up here!" Jay called after him. "Yeesh. Not enough mistletoe in the _world_ for those two . . . "

"You're one to talk." On her way past, Nya swung up the wrong side of the stepladder just long enough to peck Jay on the nose. She hopped down and dashed onwards before he could respond.

"H-hey!" Jay recovered his composure, skipped a few rungs on his way down, and headed after her. "Wait for me!"

"C'mon guys, I hear Mr. Beasley's waiting. Wouldn't want to be late to more chores, wouldja?" Cole was heading outside as well. Lloyd turned to follow, then looked back to see if Kai was coming. Nope.

"C'monnnn, Kai." Rolling his eyes amusedly, Lloyd went back and pulled on Kai's foot. "Joke's over, you can get up now."

He had to tug a few seconds more before Kai suddenly sat bolt upright, sending the cardboard box flying. Lloyd didn't bat an eyelash.

"Ya coming?"

Kai, looking peeved at the lack of reaction, wound up to pounce. Lloyd tensed and started back, his eyes inadvertently hardening in warning. Kai caught the look just in time. He froze, searched Lloyd's expression for a second, then abandoned the lunge. Dropping his gaze, he began to slough off loops of tinsel.

"Sorry," mumbled Lloyd, also avoiding Kai's eyes. Kai grunted resignedly. They had all learned not to roughouse with Lloyd anymore. Shortly after coming back from the First Realm Cole had put him in a headlock and gotten blown into a wall. Certainly not by any intent of Lloyd's, just . . . his reflexes were a little intense lately.

"Well, _anyway_." Kai shook a stubborn tangle off his arm, scowled at it, then worked it into a wreath and plopped it on Lloyd's head. "There. Let's go."

"You've still got **—** " Lloyd cringed as Kai tried to get up, got caught in another loop of tinsel, and nearly went sprawling again.

"I swear this stuff has it in for me!" sputtered Kai.

"Well, you _did_ set it on fire . . . "

Kai growled, baffled. Chuckling, Lloyd shook off the tinsel crown and nudged Kai after the others.

"Come on, everyone's waiting. Whatever Mr. Beasley's got, it might be a team effort."

"Oh _joy_ ," said Kai, sighing as he followed Lloyd out.

* * *

 **A/N: What am I doing posting the first chapter of this on Christmas Day, what is this madness . . .**

 **Ech. I wanted to at least feel like I'd _started_ this in time for Christmas. Even slightly. And maybe also force myself to finish writing this, because a lot of it is still . . . decidedly not written. But hopefully I can finish!**

 **Hope everyone is having a great Christmas! ^_^**


	2. Clanging Chimes of Doom

**Preeeeesenting, Madame Zero-Chill! And friends. :3**

 **Also, the part where it becomes really clear that I don't know if I'm writing a gritty survival fic or a goofy cartoon humor fic. :P**

* * *

"It's even colder today." Jet Jack's voice was hollow.

"I know." Faith scanned the horizon, fighting back a shiver. With every new breath of cold breeze, her heart sank lower and lower.

Everything had been going so well. Their crops had been growing, their food supply had almost been steady, they'd started repurposing their hunting machines for farming. Everyone had been filled with so much hope for their future.

But it seemed like the universe just couldn't bear their happiness for long. Slowly the weather had changed. At first it only grew pleasantly cool, and everyone had been delighted to no longer sweat buckets while working in the fields.

But it just kept getting cooler. Then the days grew frankly cold. The crops were dying. Everyone began to panic as starvation loomed on the horizon. And what could Faith do for the people she was now leading, the people who depended on her?

Nothing.

She hadn't felt this helpless since Iron Baron was in charge.

Jet Jack was scuffing around at the edge of a field, picking up handfuls of dead leaves. For a while they'd all tried to stick them back onto the plants, as if that would somehow fix things. It did not. They'd tried giving the plants more water, but that didn't work either. Heck, they'd even tried lighting fires along the edges of the fields to warm the plants up. It nearly set the village on fire, but that's all it did.

"So . . . what do we do now?" Jet Jack crumbled dried leaves between her fingers. "The plants are going fast. Should we plant more?"

"They'll just die as well. It's the cold that's killing them." Faith chewed the inside of her cheek. "For now, we should try to gather whatever food is left out here, before it falls to the ground and rots. If we gather it quickly, we should have enough to last us a month or two."

"Gather _everything?_ " Faith's second-in-command looked around at the fields. "That would take the whole village."

"Then the whole village is what we'll get," said Faith. "Come on. We'll make the announcement now."

They turned back to the Hunter settlement, crunching through an ever-thickening layer of dead plant matter. It was full of unfamiliar smells, a pleasant, earthy, moldy kind of nature scent. It was lost on the two Hunters, though. They had a lot on their minds.

"So . . . for now we gather up the food," said Jet Jack. "And we last a couple of months on that. Then what?"

Faith hesitated, scrabbling for an answer. After a moment she let out a frustrated breath.

"I don't know." She jammed her hands into her pockets. "I'll **—** I'll think of something."

"What if it stays like this forever?" said Jet Jack. "What if the plants never grow again?"

Faith gritted her teeth. It was even worse hearing the thought out loud.

"We survived without plants before," she said heavily. "We can do it again."

"Without hunting dragons? . . . "

The question seemed to twist in the silence, writhing like a dark snake in their path. No plants. No dragon meat. Nothing left to eat . . . Nothing.

"No," said Faith, at last. "Without hunting dragons. We gave our word."

Jet Jack said nothing. They made the rest of the walk to the village in silence.

When they passed through the village walls, they were startled to meet a mob of Hunters who all seemed to be heading _out_. They were carrying the makeshift farming tools they'd invented in the past few months, as well as absolute masses of buckets, wheelbarrows, baskets, and bags. They seemed to be in strangely good spirits.

"What's going on?" shouted Faith above the noise.

"Old Redskull's remembered!" called Daddy No-Legs. "It's winter!"

"And we hafta go out to harvest!" Chew Toy flailed a shovel.

Old Redskull again. Faith resisted the urge to groan. The old man hadn't been wrong once so far, she really should start giving him more credit.

"What's winter?" she said, instead. "And what is this 'harvest'?"

Old Redskull pushed his way to the front of the crowd. He was the oldest person in the village; stone blind for most of his life. A dragon had bitten off the upper half of his face. (He wore a combination hood-mask to cover everything above his mouth, but a few Hunters had seen him remove it. Experiences best not talked about.)

Back when Iron Baron was in charge, Redskull had been considered useless **—** unable to hunt, he'd been left in the village and given no more respect than a child. But now that the Dragon Hunters were trying to live peacefully, the old man was slowly gaining more and more prestige. Turned out he had an invaluable resource: memories of life before dragon hunting existed.

Vague, patchy, slow-to-surface memories. But still.

"When I was a boy," he began, and Faith almost did groan. Redskull always began that way.

"When I was a boy," he said again, "it would get cold just like this. Every so often, regularly. Strange things would happen . . . "

"What kind of strange things?" Faith tensed.

"Strange . . . things." Redskull tilted his hooded head thoughtfully. That seemed to be as specific as his memory got. "But the cold never lasted. It was called 'winter,' and after a few months it would go away."

"You're sure?" Jet Jack snapped up this bit of news like a lizard catching a fly. "It'll get warm again?"

"Yes, yes, of course," said Old Redskull. He scratched his nose through his mask. "But the plants would always die in the winter, so when it started to get cold, we would go out and 'harvest.' Gather all the food in the fields and store it for later."

"So that's what we're doing!" Daddy No-Legs waved a rake. "To the fields!"

"To the fields!" shouted several of the other Hunters, and everyone began to swarm off.

"I didn't say yes to this!" Faith called after them, but everyone except Jet Jack was already out of earshot. Faith looked to her second-in-command, who spread her hands, grabbed up a spade someone had dropped, and headed after the others.

"That's a pretty grouchy face, for such good news!" she called over her shoulder.

Faith sighed, reluctantly following. She was grateful for Old Redskull's wisdom, and for the promise of warmer weather. And she _had_ been about to give the exact same order herself. But still, it got annoying when Redskull stole her thunder. Which happened a lot.

But at least there was hope in the future. Who knew how long this 'winter' would be, and how long their food would last . . . But whatever they were about to face, it would be a little easier if they could at least have hope. Now they had something to pull through for.

. . . Fantastic. For a second there she'd almost sounded like that little wretch Wu. Blegh.

* * *

"Thank you so much for your help so far!" Mr. Beasley pushed his glasses up on his nose, beaming. "The mall looks great. I do need a few of you to keep decorating, but I was also wondering if I could pull some of you away for other jobs! We're about to open up for the day, and Santa will be having visits from the kids soon."

"Who's playing Santa?" said Cole.

"Well, we've hired a guy, but he hasn't showed up yet." Mr. Beasley scratched his chin. "But I'm sure he's just late, you know traffic is still pretty snarly these days. But Santa still needs some assistants **—** I was thinking an elf and a reindeer. So if two of you . . . "

"Elf," said several voices at once, while various fingers were leveled at Lloyd. He rolled his eyes.

"Ah, heh . . . " Mr. Beasley smiled awkwardly. "Actually I kind of already had a job planned out for Lloyd. Would you be willing to do mall security? You know, a lot of people are still nervous about crime rates and whether it's safe being out in public places like this. I think they'd feel better if they knew the Green Ninja was on patrol."

There was some grumbling and sighing from the others.

"Hey, if you have a spare elf hat, I could be a security elf," offered Lloyd, trying to be a good sport.

"Sorry, just one." Mr. Beasley held up a folded elf outfit.

"Actually, I **—** " PIXAL started forward, then lost nerve and stopped. She might have gone unnoticed, except Zane saw her longing gaze. He nudged her and nodded urgently, reassuring her that it wasn't improper to ask, and she gave him an awkward smile and plucked up her courage again. She might be excellent at savagery, but when it came to peaceful social interactions she was still a little unsure of herself.

"Could I?" she spoke up, interrupting the guys noisily trying to nominate each other. "I've never worn a costume before."

"Oh, uh—certainly!" Mr. Beasley held out the elf outfit. PIXAL took it and stroked the shimmering green fabric, her eyes bright.

"I'll be the reindeer, in that case!" said Zane, reaching for the other costume. The others muffled giggles and nudged him a bit, but said nothing out loud. Couldn't blame a poor Nindroid for wanting to spend time with his favorite person in the world.

"Lloyd, could you pick a partner for security detail?" continued Mr. Beasley, a little flustered by the mounting levity.

Lloyd looked around at Kai, Jay, and Cole, all eagerly raising their hands so they wouldn't have to do more chores, then chuckled and pointed to Nya.

"Awww, come on!"

"The people got used to seeing Nya defending the city too," said Lloyd. "She'll make them feel just as safe as I would."

Nya tried not to look _too_ proud, while Kai and Jay made no such efforts.

"All right, just two more things," said Mr. Beasley, consulting his clipboard. "Two more to finish decorating, and one to be a bellringer for the charity kettle."

"Ooooh, me, me! I'll be the bellringer!" said Jay.

" _No!_ " cried Kai, Zane, and Cole simultaneously. Lloyd, PIXAL, and Nya all gave them strange looks.

"Why not? Jay would be great at chatting people up and convincing them to donate," said Lloyd.

" _Reasons_ ," said Cole. "Hands off that bell, Sparky!"

He tried to grab Jay's arm, but the lightning ninja evaded his grip and darted to grab the bell from the charity kettle set up nearby. He gave it a good savage ring, testing out the sound. Zane looked away, Kai outright covered his ears and shut his eyes, and Cole just looked kind of poisoned, while all the others exchanged more and more bewildered looks.

Jay's expression had gone a little distant, his ringing slowing just a bit as if his mind was drifting. After a moment though, he brightened and went back to ringing harder, turning to beam at the others.

"Ha! I'm a natural."

He settled himself by the kettle and continued to ring. Cole, Kai, and Zane resigned themselves to the situation, looking like they'd been assigned to lifetime diets of cold porridge.

"What is _up_ with you guys?" said Nya.

"Nothing," sighed Kai. "Take too long to explain."

They hadn't mentioned anything to the others about Jay's brief psychotic break in the First Realm. They didn't want to make everyone worry and constantly watch Jay for signs of a relapse, the way they'd been doing ever since. Sometimes it led to awkward situations, though.

"Well . . . _anyway_ ," said Lloyd at last. "I guess that leaves Cole and Kai for the decorations."

"Oh, _joy_ ," said Kai again—but not loud enough for Mr. Beasley to hear.

They all scattered to their respective tasks, three of them perfectly happy to escape Jay's strident ringing. Cole and Kai got to work with a box full of jingle bell strips, which were supposed to hang around the enclosed area serving as Santa's "workshop."

"You think Jay's gonna be all right?" said Kai under his breath.

"Seems okay," said Cole, shrugging. He fished another strip of jingle bells out of the box, wincing subtly at the crisp jingling sound.

"Ugh, why do we have to hang these anyway? It's not like they're gonna make any noise, just hanging from a fence," grumbled Kai.

They worked quietly for a while, inexplicably tense. After some time Kai finally looked up and half-snapped, "Do you have to make so much noise with those?"

"Do _you?_ " said Cole, equally heated. They both paused and blinked at each other. Eventually Kai looked down at the strip of jingle bells he was holding and shook them experimentally. Sure enough, he and Cole both tensed slightly.

"They sound a little like chains, huh?" said Cole, looking away.

"Yeah," mumbled Kai. "A little bit." He set his teeth and gave the strip a vicious rattle. "There," he said gamely. "Just have to get used to it."

"Yeah," said Cole. "It'll wear off."

They got back to work, making sure to shake each sheaf of bells violently before hanging it.

* * *

The citizens of Ninjago all, collectively, had death wishes.

Garmadon was pretty sure of that. He'd been rather puzzled when he saw how many of them continued living in the city, even when his Colossus and the Sons of Garmadon had been making the place a living hell. Then when his powers were stripped and he was packed off to Kryptarium, he was boggled at the shoddy design of the place. If he'd had even an _ounce_ of his powers left, he could have blown through every security measure with one finger. Although he kept a lofty aloofness from the other prisoners (and besides, he was more or less in solitary confinement), he still heard talk about how easy it was to get past Ninjago's other security systems, like in banks and museums. Despite the ubiquity of intense villain attacks, nobody ever invested in more powerful safety measures.

And now _this_. The deranged evil overlord who had turned their city to ruins, and their idea was "Well come on, it's _Christmas_. What better time to chip a few years off the sentence with some community service?"

Not that it made much difference, his sentence was about four or five centuries anyway.

Still, Garmadon didn't pass up prime opportunities. He was miserable unless he had something to torment or destroy, and that kind of stuff was scarce in Kryptarium. So now here he was, on the prison bus with a bunch of his former minions and a lot of other thugs. He took up a whole seat near the back, brooding and glaring out the barred window. All the prisoners were sitting on one side of the bus, and all the guards were sitting on the other, and dent his headgear if the guards hadn't started _singing carols_. Worse yet, some of the more chuckle-headed villains seemed to be joining in, instead of whispering escape plots during this obvious opportunity. Imbeciles.

Well, but he'd put up with it. Like every other prisoner, he had only two guards. He already matched them in arms and far outmatched them in brains. He'd be free again before nightfall . . . If all this blather about dashing through snow didn't snap his sanity first.

The bus pulled up to the Ninjago City Mall, and the driver waved for some of the prisoners to be loaded off. Two guards stood up and smiled much too cheerfully in Garmadon's direction. One of them wore a Santa hat, for good measure. Sniffing, he stood up regally, as if it had been his own idea.

The matter escalated to _unbelievable_. Garmadon began to wonder if this was some kind of setup, and they _wanted_ him to try escaping. He was assigned to the mall's arcade, which was still in very bad shape and cordoned off from the public, and told to tidy up the overturned arcade machines and jumbled boxes of prizes. He was just preparing to cajole the guards into removing his handcuffs when—

"Ah gee, you'll never get any work done that way," said one of the guards. "Here, lemme get that."

He reached up and unlocked both pairs of cuffs. Garmadon was a being of maniacal evil, and as such could not look flabbergasted—not a chance. But he would have, if he could have.

It seemed too good to be true; he hesitated to act. For a little while he chafed silently under the guards' eyes, righting arcade machines and shoving them willy-nilly into rows. He tried not to think about the indignity of it.

"Must be handy havin' four arms for that kinda work, huh?" said one of the guards amiably.

Reflexively Garmadon almost reduced him to ash where he stood—but then he remembered he had no more powers, and would have done nothing more than flourish one palm dramatically. Thank goodness for his quick mind.

But then unbelievable progressed to inconceivable. Within half an hour, the guards grew bored watching Garmadon—he seemed so docile, after all—and began to play on one of the arcade machines. Garmadon stared at their backs for a moment, wondering how the human species persisted in this disaster of a realm.

Well, he'd have time to wonder about that later. Turning on his heel, Garmadon strode right out the door. Nobody so much as shouted after him.

The mall hallway was altogether too bright—decorations glistening everywhere—and too _noisy_ —tinny carols playing over the speaker system, the chatter of shoppers in the distance.

Garmadon checked if he'd been seen. He knew he had to get back to terrorizing Ninjago, but he had no concrete plan in place. For now, he should probably lie low and figure out his strategy.

He cast about for a moment. Ahhh, there! "Employees Only." He barged through the forbidden door.

Behind it was a utilities and storage room. Garmadon slipped between a wall and a metal shelf full of tattered cardboard boxes, grinning maniacally to himself. The _perfect_ escape! This couldn't be real.

As he settled into his hiding pla—strategic position, his ankle clicked oddly against the wall. Frowning, he twisted to see what had made the noise.

Ahhhh, he _knew_ he'd been forgetting something. The ankle monitor. Built-in GPS and everything.

Scowling, Garmadon pried at the device with his other foot. It didn't budge. Scowling harder, he weighed his options. He could probably find something to break the ankle monitor off with, but it would make a lot of noise and get him caught.

So then, he might be stuck with this blasted device for a while. He knew the GPS wasn't very precise, but if he tried to leave the mall the police would be able to track his approximate location. Besides, out in broad daylight he'd doubtless attract attention. Maybe he should stay in the mall till it closed for the night, and break off the ankle monitor then. Even if the guards went looking for him in the meantime, they'd only have a general idea that he was _somewhere_ in the mall. Evading them would be easy.

Still. Garmadon found his good mood dropping a few notches.

It dropped a whole bunch more notches when the door to the storage room suddenly opened. He shrank back into the shadows, snarling under his breath. If it was someone coming for supplies off the shelf he was hiding behind—

Ah, no. It was those two infernal Nindroids, and they were staying near the entryway. Chattering and giggling like schoolchildren, too. Dis _gusting_.

"I'm sorry this is the best we could do for a dressing room," said Zane, untangling his reindeer outfit. "I suppose we could have tried the department store—"

"We're _Nindroids_. We hardly need to worry about decency." PIXAL's voice was softly amused. "Oh, does this not fit me?"

"The sleeves might be a little long, but I think it's just a poor cut," said Zane. "Don't worry, the children won't mind. There, we can roll them up like this. Perfect."

"Do I look convincing?" she said hopefully.

"Only the most convincing," said Zane, then looked away bashfully. "A-and darling."

"Goodness." PIXAL didn't know where to look either. From his hiding place Garmadon rested his forehead against the metal shelf and fortified himself in endurance. His luck at evading sharp-sensed Nindroids had been excellent so far. It would really suck to blow his cover anyway by starting to projectile vomit all over the place. These simpering love-besotted _fools_. Re _volting_.

"You're very handsome too," ventured PIXAL at last.

"Oh . . . I don't know if that's quite the word . . . " Zane tugged on the felt hooves attached to his sleeves and adjusted his antlers. He sighed, giving PIXAL a rueful smile. "It's all right, you can laugh."

"I wasn't about to," said PIXAL earnestly. Zane's eyebrows rose a bit, and her face fell. "Oh . . . My sense of humor is lacking again, isn't it. My apologies, I—"

"No, that's all right—"

"I really should look into having a funny switch installed," said PIXAL, picking at the rolled sleeve of her elf shirt. "But there is always so much going on, I—"

"PIXAL, no. Wait." Zane took her hands gently. "You don't have to worry about it. I know it must be frustrating for you, not understanding humor. I know how that feels. And if you want to understand the world around you better, then I certainly can't argue with that. But . . . if you just want to change for me, you don't have to do that. Never. You know that, right?"

PIXAL dropped her gaze again, with that shy smile that always made Zane want to swoop her into a hug and never let go.

"I know . . ." She snuck a glance up at Zane, smiling. "But at any rate. I still think you look handsome."

Zane laughed softly, and Garmadon mentally commanded lightning to strike him before this drivel progressed to some kind of repulsive snuggling. He didn't escape Kryptarium just to bear witness to this muck. By the Kraken's bones.

Fortunately (for Garmadon), someone started knocking on the utility room door.

"Are you two ready?" called Mr. Beasley from outside. "Sorry, but our Santa still hasn't arrived. Could you hold fort at the workshop and tell families he'll be coming soon?"

Zane and PIXAL cast each other a regretful look, but turned to the door and called "We're coming!"

"Should we bring the Santa suit?" asked Zane.

"Nah, leave it there. Whenever the old codger shows up, he'll be getting dressed in there too."

Still holding hands, Zane and PIXAL slipped out the door. Somewhere in the distance came a delighted squeal of, "Zane! You're _fuzzy!_ "

Garmadon leaned back against the wall, permitting himself a sigh of relief. He wasn't sure how much more of that nonsense he could have stood. Maybe he should find somewhere else to hide before that guy playing Santa came in here . . .

A thought struck him. Why lurk around in the shadows till nightfall, hiding like a coward and biding his time? Why not get to work terrorizing Ninjago already? His knowledge of the world was pretty patchy, but clearly this Christmas business was a big deal to everyone. What better way to terrorize Ninjago than to ruin Christmas?

His gaze fell on the Santa suit left atop a table.

Hmmm . . .


	3. You Sit On a Throne of LIES

**Now that I think about it, "we don't want to starve so we're gluing leaves back onto the plants" probably counts as dark humor. That answers the humor vs. angst question. :P**

 **Happy New Year, and a big thank you to everyone who's reviewed so far!**

* * *

"I can't believe how many times I complained about being hot!" groaned Arkade, from behind his mask.

"I can't believe how many times I've heard someone say they can't believe how many times they complained about being hot," quipped Jet Jack, although she was shivering herself.

Arkade looked at her blankly, processing that sentence. She waved him off, chuckling.

"Doesn't matter. Whoops!"

She reached out to steady one of the children, who was stumbling by with an over-ambitious load of buckets.

"Fenko, even the adults only carry two," she said amusedly. "Downgrade a little. Here, I'll help."

Fenko reluctantly surrendered one of the buckets, and Jet Jack hopped off the ground with her jetpack and whisked off towards the village. It wasn't necessarily the most economical way to carry a bucket full of light grain. Down below Faith started and looked up as wheat showered from the sky.

"Jet Jack!" she shouted. Her second-in-command was out of earshot. When she got back, Faith gave her a stern look.

"We can't afford to spill grain everywhere."

"Oh, we're going over the field again with a rake anyway," said Jet Jack carelessly. "I'll be careful after that."

Faith wanted to say something about having to gather twice for one handful of grain, but she knew from experience that it wouldn't be heard. Sometimes she wondered if that visor covered more than Jet Jack's eyes.

Meanwhile, Muzzle had discovered a difficulty. He had stopped gathering wheat and was going around in circles, swatting his hands in front of his face.

"What are you doing?" Daddy No-Legs looked over, amused. "The bugs disappeared ages ago."

Muzzle paused and flapped his arms frantically. Daddy No-Leg's eyes widened when he saw the streamers of mist curling through the slits on Muzzle's mask.

"Are you on fire?!" He lurched over to see where the smoke was coming from. "How did you manage that? Put it out!"

Muzzle only gave a screech, pointing to No-Leg's face. The other Hunter looked bewildered, then realized puffs of smoke seemed to be spurting from his own mouth as he talked.

"WHAT'S HAPPENING?"

A decent panic began to spread, as Hunters realized one by one that they were also breathing out smoke.

"Is everyone all right? What's going on? Smoke, who's breathing smoke?!" Faith tried to sort out the source of the panic. It only took her a moment to find that it was happening to her as well. Jet Jack too. Several of the Hunters were covering their mouths, as if their souls might leap out their throats next. Her heartrate shot up, unbidden. This couldn't be good. Were they all sick? Had the cold damaged them somehow? Were their insides turning to ash? How was she supposed to fix this?

"Everyone calm down!" Old Redskull waved from a few rows over, shouting above the anxious chatter. "Stop it, all of you. I remember this now, it happens whenever it gets cold. It's perfectly harmless."

"Breathing smoke is _harmless?_ " said Jet Jack, from behind her hands.

"I don't know if it's smoke, it has no scent." Redskull shrugged. "But yes, of course it's harmless. We all survived winters back when I was a boy, didn't we?"

Some murmuring as the Hunters digested this logic. Gradually everyone began to calm down. Hands came away from mouths, and some Hunters began to gingerly, experimentally blow out long streamers of mist, watching it with fascination.

"We're not going to breathe fire next, are we?" said No-Legs.

"'fraid not," said Redskull wryly.

"That's a pity," sighed No-Legs. "Think how warm that would be!" He looked to Muzzle. "Hey! You think we could invent something to help us breathe fire?"

"Please, no!" called Faith, scooping up a sheaf of wheat. "I don't know about you, but I _like_ our village unburned."

"We wouldn't set the village on fire!" said No-Legs indignantly.

"Like you promised you wouldn't flood the throne room when you tried to collect rainwater?" retorted Faith. "Besides. You would burn your mouth. Humans weren't meant to breathe fire."

"You seem to manage it all right, whenever Chew Toy leaves the gates open," said Jet Jack cheekily.

Faith groaned. Leave it to Jet Jack. Back when the Hunters had agreed to make Faith the leader, they had all collaborated on a cautionary list of Top Ten Things Everyone Hated About Iron Baron. Obviously #1 was "murdering his own people and blaming the Oni," but #2 was "never cared about anyone" and #3 was "yelled at people all the time." So Faith always tried to do the opposite herself **—** she made sure to treat her people fairly, to listen to their concerns and never shoot them down. She did expect her orders to be obeyed, but she tried not to be too harsh about demanding respect.

Which proved to be a hassle, when it came to Jet Jack. Jet Jack was an excellent second-in-command, loyal and honest and full of bright ideas **—** buuuuut now that disrespect was no longer harshly punished, it turned out she had about twenty-seven years' worth of suppressed sassiness just waiting to gush out. And that was impressive, because Jet Jack was twenty-one.

"I'm gonna breathe fire!" Fenko was shouting, meanwhile. "I'm a dragon! RAWR!"

The other kids fled before him, shrieking.

* * *

Firstbourne emerged from the interdimensional tunnel about a mile away from Ninjago City. She arced into a hover, peering towards the skyscrapers. Everything seemed to be at peace . . . Heck, the city was still standing. That was a good start.

She flapped towards the towers of glass and steel, trusting her senses to guide her to Wu. She could feel him somewhere around here; that was a good sign too.

As she flew over the city, people in the streets started and looked up, pointing and exclaiming. Traffic got a little snarled. There was no panic, though **—** everyone remembered her from the fight against Garmadon.

Drifting lazily around skyscrapers, Firstbourne took the opportunity to spy on people's moral characters a bit. Wu wasn't just being poetic when he said Firstbourne could see into hearts. Like all dragons, she had a natural ability to sense goodness or lack thereof. It wasn't really _seeing_ , it was more like . . . synesthesia, sort of. Feeling colors. If she looked at a person and paid attention, she didn't _see_ a colorful heart-glow coming off them, but she kind of _felt_ one.

And when she first visited Ninjago, she had been startled. The only humans she had seen before were Dragon Hunters and Wu's crew. She had assumed the "look" of their souls was just standard for humans. But here in Ninjago, it seemed like the ninja were actually the only ones who looked that way . . .

Perching on the edge of a building, Firstbourne zeroed in on this or that pedestrian. Yep, just like she remembered. Very mottled hearts all around. They glowed in all kinds of colors, some beautiful, some ugly. Usually a person had a mix of both. Some had a few cracks or fragments or dark patches. Some had dim, dirty streaks swirling in them. Firstbourne growled softly in her throat. Dragon Hunter colors. That one fellow on the corner had a heart the color of mud, sickly grey, _way_ too much like Iron Baron's. She resisted the urge to eat him.

Oh, there in that alleyway. A teenager, with worrisome dull streaks already, but **—** aside from that, that was a little like the ninjas' . . . Firstbourne squinted, trying to figure out what connected the ninja, the Dragon Hunters, and this particular person over here.

Then she got distracted by a familiar sunny glow. Her head snapped up, and she gave a roar of greeting for one of her two favorite humans.

Wu dropped one of his grocery bags, and nearly lost his hat with how fast he looked up. He broke into a smile when he saw Firstbourne, gingerly slithering down into the street to greet him. Traffic really took a hit.

"Hello, old friend," murmured the old man, setting down his bags to stroke Firstbourne's nose. "Is everything all right?"

She rumbled softly, reassuring him that she hadn't come for an emergency. His heart had a beautiful soft-yellow glow, just like she remembered. Granted, there were two somewhat dirty streaks by the edges, but only two. And just like she remembered, his heart had that bizarre rare pattern she couldn't understand. It was like a stained-glass window: thousands of little fragments.

Presently a shrill honking came from beside her tail as a driver grew impatient. Firstbourne snapped her head around and gave an annoyed snarl, while Wu hastened to pat her neck soothingly.

"Perhaps we should go to visit my ninja?" he said. "They'd be happy to see you, and it's a little more peaceful where they are."

Firstbourne huffed in assent and lowered her head to let him climb on.

* * *

PIXAL and Zane were a little awkward. The sign outside the "workshop" arena clearly said Santa would be seeing visitors at 10, and here it was 10:45 and still no Santa. Families kept wandering up to the entrance and looking around, wondering if Santa was hiding under a Christmas tree somewhere.

"Do we have the wrong day?" said one mother.

"No, uh—it's—we—" PIXAL stuttered, at a loss.

"Is he not coming?" piped a little girl, her eyes sad. "Did his house get smashed too?"

"He's just a little late," cut in Zane glibly. "He had to inspect an important batch of presents. But don't worry, he's eager to see you once he gets here!"

The little girl brightened. As her family left, she pointed back to the workshop and called out to some passing children, "Santa's inspeckin' our presents!"

Meanwhile PIXAL was the most horrified elf on this side of the equator.

"That was a _lie_ ," she said, her voice heavy with accusation.

Zane opened his mouth to explain, but a shout rang out from farther down the mall.

"You guys! You guys! Firstbourne's here!"

The ninja all came hurrying out to meet the dragon queen.

"Is everything okay? What's happening? Is the First Realm in trouble?"

"Everything's all right!" called Wu, sliding from Firstbourne's back. "She's just here for a visit. She found me while I was out getting groceries."

"Oh, so that's where you were?" said Cole. "We were starting to think you were the mall Santa nobody's been able to find."

Wu swatted his staff at him amusedly. Admittedly Cole got away with murder a little bit, these days. He'd become just a bit of a Sensei's pet—hardly surprising, when you thought about it. He'd earned the right.

Firstbourne studied the ninja intently, meanwhile. They were as much a kaleidoscope of heart colors as ever. All in little fragments as usual—sometimes flashing seperately like facets on a diamond, sometimes together like pieces of a whole. Lloyd's was ground so fine it looked like it was made of grains of sand. Strange state of affairs.

They all fussed over Firstbourne for a while, showing her the decorations and offering her tidbits of Christmas food. For the most part she sniffed at it politely, but the plum-pudding caught her attention. It had just the right combination of scents to enchant a dragon, and it vaguely reminded her of some dishes she'd tried long ago, in her hazy memories of being a young dragon. After inhaling greedily a few times, she abruptly lunged forward and attacked the plum-pudding so savagely that Jay squeaked and dropped the plate. She absorbed it before it could even reach the floor, smacking her lips and crunching hungrily at whole cloves.

"I guess she likes that," said Cole, looking with a sigh at his rejected fruitcake. "Oh well, more of this for me, I guess."

Firstbourne licked her chops and inspected the plate, checking if she'd missed any bits of dried fruit. A bit unprofessional of her, she supposed, but hey—she was allowed to have _one_ weakness.

For a while she lounged in the parking lot with her tail wrapped around herself, taking in the chatter. She had to admit, watching these people's hearts as they interacted was . . . pleasant. You could have said warm-fuzzy, only she was an almighty millenium-old fearsome beast and frickin' Queen of Everything, she did _not_ get the warm-fuzzies. Excuse you.

But they were so nice to watch. They glowed so many bright colors, in synchronized waves and dreamy swirls. Whenever they interacted, new colors would weave in among the others **—** little ripples, spirals, starbursts, always brighter than before. There was Cole teasing Kai about something, streamers of aquamarine whipping through his pastel orange background. Unsurprisingly Kai was showing some red **—** but it wasn't the searing, frothing sheets of red Firstbourne was used to seeing, when Dragon Hunters came at her head with swords. Just gentle little flecks, popping like bubbles against waves of teal and green. Then Cole must've pushed it too far, because a real shower of red sparks shot across Kai's soul **—** synchronized with a growl and a warning look in Kai himself **—** and Cole held up his hands and said "okay, okay!", the aquamarine instantly morphing into green and blue. Kai's red sparks coalesced into a firework, flashed, and faded, melting into a similar soft green.

All of this pretty dramatic, for something Firstbourne couldn't actually see with her eyes. She almost had to wonder if the ninja could see into hearts as well **—** they seemed to have such a good sense of each others' color schemes.

Especially those two mated pairs, the metallic duo and ponytail-girl-plus-fluffy-boy. They influenced each other's colors like they weren't even separate entities. Burst of green in Zane, ripples carried right over into PIXAL without even slowing down. Mushy as all get out.

Still, as much as she enjoyed their company, she felt strangely restless. It wasn't their fault, but the traces of Oni blood in Wu and Lloyd still made her a little antsy. The effect seemed stronger than usual today . . . Hmm. Maybe she was just irritable due to all the noise everyone was making. It's not like there would be any pure-blood Oni in the area, right? They would definitely have noticed that. Ugh, her senses must be getting screwy with age . . .

Eventually her restlessness won out. She made sure there wasn't any more plum-pudding forthcoming, nuzzled Wu and Lloyd affectionately, and took her leave. The ninja waved till she was out of sight, reluctant to go inside and get back to work.

"Awww man, we forgot to tell her to snuggle Zane," said Cole. "Now she won't know he's fuzzy!"

"I suppose she can live without that knowledge," said Zane drily, straightening his antlers.

"But think how she's missing out!" Jay huggled the Nindroid melodramatically, knocking his antlers askew again. "So soft . . . So _fuzzy . . ._ "

"It's just chenille," said Zane, by now a bit salty. "It's really no more fuzzy than a sweater."

"Shhhhh, Zane! Don't ruin the magic!" scolded Cole, in mock horror.

Lloyd chuckled, but stepped in to break up the brewing squabble.

"C'mon, you guys. We still have a lot of work to do. Nya, want to switch patrol sectors? Uncle Wu, need a hand getting home with those groceries?"

With some sighing and dragging of feet, the ninja got back to work. As PIXAL and Zane returned to Santa's workshop, the former dredged up some old grievances.

"Zane, why were you lying to that child?"

"I wasn't lying," said Zane soothingly. "I mean . . . I guess I was, but . . . it's different."

"What is different, and how?" said PIXAL reproachfully. Zane blew out a breath, smiling a little. So, they were having their first fight. That was all right, though, he was sure he could explain.

First, however, they arrived at Santa's "workshop"—and found Santa already there.

"Oh!" said Zane. "We're so sorry we weren't here! We were called away to see a friend."

Santa only grunted indistinctly, twitching his beard, and hunched over in his chair. PIXAL and Zane exchanged guilty looks, but didn't let it tear them up _too_ much—after all, the guy was over an hour late himself.

"I hope he's not that out-of-sorts with the children . . . " whispered Zane, as they clambered over the fence and hastily took their places in the workshop.

"Perhaps he just feels guilty for being late," PIXAL whispered back. "Now. What is different, and how?"

She still sounded pretty miffed. Zane tilted his head, concerned.

"PIXAL, I didn't know this would bother you so much. Why did you volunteer for this role if you don't believe in deceiving children?"

PIXAL's eyes widened in horror.

"They think I'm a _real_ elf?!"

"Of course," said Zane. "You didn't know?"

"And they think that man is the real Santa?!" demanded PIXAL, pointing.

"Shush, he'll hear you!" sputtered Zane, looking anxiously over his shoulder. "But yes, of course they do."

PIXAL folded her arms, disbelieving.

"There is no way on _earth_ they would believe you are a real reindeer."

Zane blinked, then chuckled ruefully.

"Why? Am I not fuzzy enough?"

PIXAL squinted, trying to figure out if that was a joke. She was just about to say something rather acidic when a family hove into view, towing two small children.

"Oh dear. Quick, get into character!" whispered Zane. "I'll explain more later."

PIXAL looked shifty.

"No, don't tell them you aren't real!" pleaded Zane under his breath. "Don't tell them anything isn't real! The parents would be very angry, and the children would be so disappointed. You don't want to ruin Christmas for little children, do you?"

PIXAL hesitated, torn. In the meantime, the family approached Santa's workshop, and Zane quickly stepped up.

"Hello!" he called, smiling and surreptitiously adjusting his antlers. "Are you here to visit Santa? Step right up, please!"

One of the kids scurried ahead to tell Santa her Christmas list, while the younger one paused to stare up at Zane. His parents chuckled, cooing "Say hi to the nice reindeer, Ty!" Zane played along, waving one felt hoof sweetly at the toddler. The kid's eyes widened.

"Pet!" he demanded, already heading for Zane with one hand up. Zane looked to the parents for permission, then laughed and scooped the youngster up in his arms.

"Is that soft?" he asked, as Ty stroked lovingly between his reindeer ears. "I'm growing my coat out for the winter, so I can be warm while helping Santa deliver presents."

Ty nodded solemnly. Seeing that his sister was sliding off Santa's lap, he began squirming until Zane set him down.

"Have a nice visit with Santa!" called Zane, then re-adjusted his antlers and glanced to PIXAL with a coaxing smile. She turned her head away.

"I—I can't look at you."

"PIXAL . . . " Zane didn't know if he was amused or dismayed. A little bit of both, maybe. Just then, however, he saw that the little girl returning from her visit with Santa looked awfully unhappy. Oh no . . . was that grouch not good with children? Maybe she had been frightened of Santa, as some kids were, and he hadn't been good at soothing her?

Well, either way, that couldn't stand. Leaving the question of truthfulness to fester for the moment, Zane swooped over to chat with the little girl until she cheered up.

* * *

In his own personal opinion, Garmadon's plan was absolutely spectacular. The only problem was, he couldn't tell if it was a spectacular success or a spectacular failure.

On one hand, he was probably going to be stuck here for hours, with these snotty little brats clambering around on his lap and lisping disgustingly adorable present requests. _Blegh_. This beard was itchy as heck, and he knew his second pair of arms was going to get really sore, staying wrapped up under his Santa suit. He had no clue how to act like a Santa, and he wouldn't have done it even if he knew, so he risked being found out. And he hadn't reckoned on the Nindroids being so close by.

On the plus side, though, he seemed to have everyone completely fooled. Even the Nindroids weren't paying attention to him, caught up with greeting families and having some private argument. Speaking of, now they were arguing instead of being all lovey-dovey, and that was _very_ gratifying. Besides, sometimes he got to see some crying children or utterly dysfunctional families, snapping and snarling and making a public scene instead of being jolly. Did his heart good.

So he could bide his time, for now. In the meantime, he could plot how to ruin Christmas entirely, and-or destroy Ninjago, once he got a chance to ditch this ankle monitor.

Meanwhile, Santa's reindeer was turning out to be a bigger hit than Santa himself. He was a good actor, and of course very fuzzy. All the children wanted to pet him or hug him, and all his teammates (so, overgrown children) wanted to as well. He couldn't stay grumpy about it for long, being that popular.

In between wishing families a merry Christmas, he tried to reason with PIXAL.

"Encouraging children to believe in magical things is very common," he assured her. "Look how much happiness it's giving them!"

"So lying is acceptable if it makes others happier?" PIXAL wasn't budging. "What if something bad happened, but you told your teammates nothing was wrong because it made them happier? Would that be all right?"

"Well—well, I—" Zane faltered. "No, that's different. Lying in that case might be dangerous, or hurtful in the long run. Telling children we're real elves and reindeer is harmless."

"What about when they grow up and find out we're just Nindroids in costumes? They'll be so disillusioned! They'll never trust anyone again." PIXAL folded her arms. "That's not harmless."

"Most children come to terms with it just fine," sighed Zane. "Most people feel the disillusionment is worth the years of happiness they had."

"Most?" PIXAL huffed. "Are we being utilitarian about this, then?"

"PIXAL . . . " groaned Zane again. How to win her over? It was starting to get difficult explaining to families why Santa's elf was so sourly silent. Besides, he didn't want her to feel like Christmas was some kind of shady racket job and she was an unwitting accomplice. He remembered he'd been a little puzzled by Christmas traditions himself when he was a younger Nindroid, but he'd eventually learned to appreciate it when he saw how much everyone enjoyed it. He was confident he could inspire her to do the same.

As he tried to think of another argument, a hoarse whisper came from behind the Christmas tree.

"Pssst! Zane-deer the reindeer!"

Checking to make sure no more children were in line, Zane headed over. He found Cole leaning over the fence, grinning.

"Heya fuzzy."

"No more petting." Zane leaned away with an annoyed smile. "You've had enough."

Cole chuckled.

"Okay, okay. Hey, Kai and I just finished decorating around that little novelty shop they have. Found somethin' for ya."

He tossed a cardboard-mounted novelty item into Zane's hands. Zane turned it over. It was a battery-powered blinking red ball, with an elastic so you could wear it on your head. Probably meant to be a clown nose, but there were obvious other purposes.

"Very funny," sighed Zane.

"C'monnnn, Frosty! The kids will love it! You can be Rudolph the Red-Nosed Nindroid."

For a moment Zane narrowed his eyes at Cole, who only grinned harder.

"This is revenge for Laughy's, isn't it," he said at last.

"Whaaaat?" Cole gasped dramatically, putting a hand to his heart. "You're accusing me? The _responsible_ one? Of petty revenge? On _Christmas?_ "

Zane only squinted harder. Cole rolled his eyes.

"Okay, ya got me. I mean, I'm not saying this would make up for you shoving me into the most humiliating stage experience since I was seven years old, screwing me over twice, and me nearly dying a whole bunch of times, all because you randomly got fixated on chasing The Quiet One all by yourself, _but_. . . " He raised his eyebrows to indicate that he was actually saying just that. Zane weighed his options for a moment, then gave a frustrated sigh.

"And seriously, the kids _would_ love it," added Cole, more earnestly. "You know Rudolph's the favorite."

Zane glared him down for a moment. At last, though, he sighed one last time and pulled off the cardboard backing. He gave Cole a sardonic smirk.

"Well, PIXAL _did_ say I wasn't a very believable reindeer. Maybe this would help." He slipped on the blinking nose. "Do I look more convincing now?"

"Perfect!" Cole struggled not to crack up. "Convincing isn't even the word."

Zane rolled his eyes, smiling resignedly.

"Where is Kai?" he said after a moment. "Didn't you say you were decorating the novelty shop together?"

"Oh . . . yeah . . . " Cole's grin faded at once, and he looked away. "Ah, he's out cooling off. Towards the end this kid jumped out of the store wearing a monster mask, and Kai nearly killed him on sight."

"Oh my _goodness_ —"

"It was fine, it was fine!" said Cole hastily. "He caught himself in time, didn't punch the kid or anything. But—you know."

"There was a scene?" Zane winced.

"I mean . . . just a _little_." Cole shrugged uncomfortably. "The kid wasn't freaked out or anything, but Kai was a little mad. I guess partly with the kid for jumping out, but I think mostly at himself for reacting like that." He kicked at the base of the fence lightly. "You know Kai. He doesn't like the idea that a kid in a mask could mess him up. Guess I can't blame him."

There was a morose silence.

"I'm sure he'll be all right," said Zane. "Just give him some time."

"Yeah, I sent him out for a nice quick walk to clear his head. He'll be fine." Cole sighed. After a moment he looked back up and cracked a smile again. "Annnnnyway."

Zane hadn't realized he'd drifted into range; he made an annoyed noise as Cole patted him solemnly on the head.

"I'm going to start charging you a petting zoo fee."

Cole laughed and shoved his arm playfully. Zane, grateful that the mood was improving, shoved back. Cole was about to retaliate, but he stopped suddenly when he saw a green figure passing nearby.

"Hey Lloyd! Lloydster! Come over here and meet Rudolph!"

"Maybe later, sorry!" called Lloyd. "Gotta meet some guys!"

"Awww, busybody." Cole sighed. "Oh well. Hey, I think some more kids are coming to see Santa. Think PIXAL can handle 'em, or—"

"Uh-oh." Zane turned away with a rapidity that left Cole startled. "Thanks for the warning!"

He whisked back to his post, leaving Cole looking after him blankly.

* * *

Lloyd sighed as he jogged down the mall hallway. He wasn't sure what was going on—Mr. Beasley had just radioed him something about meeting some guards near the food court—but he hoped it was gonna be quick. He wanted to get back to his security detail, and maybe get a chance to hang out with the others a little. He was glad they seemed to be warming up to this mall project—he really wanted them all to have a good time.

At least the people he was passing in the mall seemed pretty happy. He wasn't anywhere near the feel-good Christmas vibe—he and Nya had already caught two shoplifters each, and stopped a near-brawl in the parking lot. Nya had ended up buying the item for one of the shoplifters herself—he was just a kid, and his family couldn't afford a doll for his little sister. Harsh reminders that the city was still far from recovered. Hard times and quasi-anarchy were still pretty common out there.

But here among the twinkling decorations, maybe the citizens could forget all that. At least for a little while. Maybe they could remember how to be happy.

Then Lloyd saw the guards he was supposed to meet, and his heart sank. Their faces didn't bode well.

"Hi," he said. "Mr. Beasley said you needed a hand?"

"Uhh . . . yeah," mumbled one of the guards. He twisted his hat between his hands. "See, uh, we're with Kryptarium Prison . . . "

"Community service division," supplied the other one.

"Yeah, and we were supposed to guard one of the prisoners while he did some community service. And, we, uh, kinda . . . "

"Lost him," said Lloyd, not even asking. He tried not to let frustration overtake him. Didn't these guys know how dangerous Kryptarium inmates were? What if someone got hurt? And Mr. Beasley had been so worried that people would be scared to come to the mall, the _last_ thing they needed was an escaped convict running loose . . .

"Well, I can help you look," he said gamely. "Who'd you lose?"

The guards exchanged an odd look and began to mumble indistinctly, shuffling their feet.

"Huh?" Lloyd tilted his head, confused.

"Uh, well, he's about . . . yea high . . . " One of the guards demonstrated.

"Yeah, and, uh . . . pretty grouchy . . . "

"Doesn't talk much . . . "

Lloyd blinked from one guard to the other, wondering why they were beating around the bush.

"You don't know his name?"

The guards exchanged another guilty look. After a moment one of them blurted, "Oh! We do know he's still inside the mall! Ankle monitor."

"Yeah, yeah, still inside the mall," agreed the other one eagerly. "Shouldn't be hard to find him, right?"

"Would . . . help if I knew what he looked like . . . " said Lloyd, but at last shrugged and pulled his mask down. "Okay then! Nya and I will do some extra searching, and I'll tell my friends to keep an eye out too. We'll find him fast!"

"Uh . . . yeah, we'll keep searching too! See you!"

The guards rushed off, relieved. They knew they had to get help finding their escapee fast, but they really hadn't wanted to admit that they managed to unleash _Lord freakin' Garmadon_ on the Ninjago City Mall.

Especially not to his freakin' estranged _son_.

* * *

 **A/N: How does this keep turning into an episode of _I Love PIXAL_ , what the heck . . . I'm not even trying, it just happens. Zane's got some 'splainin' to do!**

 **I think next chapter things will finally start happening in earnest . . . This story just keeps writing itself longer and longer. XP**


	4. The (Un)Happy Elf

***Fastens jumper cables to Chapters 1 and 3* Aright, let's get this thing started!**

* * *

Faith wiped her forehead, sighing. Harvesting was brutal work, and it had been a long day. Her back ached, her arms and legs ached, she was definitely winding up for a headache to boot . . . Oh, and let's not forget hunger pangs.

Looking around, she saw that the other Hunters were starting to flag too. She bit her lip. They really should keep working as long as they had some daylight—the longer they left grain in the fields, the more would spoil in the cold. But she really didn't want to force her Hunters past their limits either.

Old Redskull came panting by, dragging a burlap sack. He was surprisingly good at gathering grain blind. After tossing the sack onto a wheelbarrow, he dusted off his hands and paused, looking thoughtful.

"You know, I've just remembered something else about winter!" he called. "Christmas!"

"Kris what?" The Hunters paused their work.

"Only the most wonderful thing to happen all year," said Redskull. "Hah! I can't believe I forgot it! Gather around, everyone, this deserves a story."

Faith stiffened, indignant. They should be harvesting—

"Just for a few minutes," said Redskull, turning his hooded face towards her briefly. She blinked, wondering how he'd read her mind. "Just a nice quick rest. You're going to love this!"

The Hunters all gathered around eagerly, some of them settling down on the cold ground. Parents pulled children into their laps to keep them warm, while some rubbed their hands over their arms, trying to force a little heat into their muscles.

Faith decided she'd rather keep working. Still, she listened with one ear as Redskull talked.

"When I was a boy, Christmas would always come in the winter," he said. "It was a great celebration. Everyone would be so excited, more excited than anyone ever got for the dragon battles. We put special decorations on our houses to make them look nicer. We would have a feast, with all kinds of special food. Sometimes we would give each other gifts, even!"

From nearby Faith squinted, bewildered. Redskull must definitely be mixing things up in that old head of his. Why would the Hunters have a feast during the _winter_ , exactly when food stores were the most critical? Why would they waste time and energy on beautifying houses and giving gifts, when just surviving was already hard enough?

The other Hunters were listening with rapt attention, though.

"Why did you do all that?" said Jet Jack. "The gifts, and everything."

"To make each other happy," said Redskull dreamily. "To show that we cared about each other. That was the best thing about Christmas. It was supposed to be a time when everyone was happy and peaceful. We all tried to be extra kind, to forgive others and not fight with them, to do good deeds, to spend extra time with our families . . . It was called 'Christmas spirit.'"

"Sounds mushy," said Chew Toy suspiciously, folding his arms.

"And everyone actually liked this?" No-Legs was skeptical too.

"Absolutely." Redskull gave a small, sad smile. "Things were gentler before Iron Baron took over."

The Hunters murmured amongst themselves, discussing. Faith was busy drowning under a sudden wave of nostalgia. Why did this all sound so familiar? All this sloppy stuff about peace and forgiveness . . .

Ohhhhh. The ninja, that's what it reminded her of. This sounded exactly like their kind of thing. Did they have this . . . Christmas . . . too? She was willing to bet they'd be all over it. The impractical saps.

Not like . . . not like she sometimes missed them, or anything.

Meanwhile Redskull clapped for attention.

"Well, that's all I have for now. I'll tell you more when I remember it! For now, the rest of you need daylight to harvest, don't you? Do we still have daylight right now?"

The Hunters scattered back into the fields, already more lively now that they'd had a short break. Faith sighed, relieved, and made a note of that. Old Redskull knew what he was doing.

"Kris mass . . . " Jet Jack tested the word on her tongue. "What did you think of that?"

"It's pretty," said Faith noncommittally. "A nice story."

"Do you think . . . we could try it?" said Tsippa, one of the female Hunters. Faith looked up, startled. Since when did the Hunters show interest in a sissy-sounding tradition like that? She would have expected the moon to fall from the sky first.

"It might be interesting to decorate houses," said No-Legs thoughtfully.

"And I _do_ think I have a book of Christmas recipes in my hut, if someone could help me find it," said Redskull.

"Or we could invent new ones!"

"Can we? Could we?"

Multiple hopeful faces turned to Faith. She fumbled, bewildered. Redskull's description had sounded nice enough in theory, but the thought of actually _practicing_ it was strange. She could see the ninja liking it, but her Hunters weren't like the ninja. They were used to brutality, they knew the cruelty of life, they didn't waste time pretending they were nobler than their basic animal instincts. What did they want with a celebration of being gentle and generous and forgiving? It seemed so . . . _weak_.

But there wasn't really anything _wrong_ with those things, was there?

Ah, it was a moot question anyway. Faith shook her head.

"It sounds nice, but right now we need to worry about harvesting our grain and saving up food. We might have to stay on starvation rations if we're going to survive the winter, we can't afford to have a feast. And we should focus on making our houses warmer before we start making them prettier. The cold comes in through every crack and chink right now."

Some dejected murmurs. Nobody protested, though—they knew she was right.

"But we could still do the . . . what is it, 'Kris-mass spirit,' couldn't we?" said No-Legs.

Faith looked at him for a moment, trying to figure him out.

"I guess," she said at last. "If you wanted to."

* * *

If Santa's reindeer had been more popular than Santa, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Zane-deer left the jolly old man in the dust. The kids were in awe. Zane had to be very careful not to let their eager little fingers pull off his nose or derange his antlers; that would really ruin the magic.

PIXAL was still unhappy about all of it. As another set of kids scampered off, asking to see the photos their parents had taken, Zane looked back to her wearily.

"Do you want to resign? Maybe you could find someone else to wear the elf costume . . . "

"No." PIXAL rearranged fake tools on the workbench grumpily. "I signed up for this job, and I will see it through to the finish."

"I hate that you're so unhappy, though," said Zane gently. PIXAL shrugged.

"I have to admit, I don't understand," continued Zane. "I know that lying to impressionable children is particularly unkind, but . . . why does it bother you _this_ much? I don't mean to judge, but . . . you've done quite a lot of lying yourself. Nobody knew you were Samurai X for over a year. And you did that to make me happier yourself, didn't you?"

He braced, expecting PIXAL to get angry. Instead she looked up and said, " _Exactly!_ "

Zane blinked.

"Now I really don't understand."

"I hated it," said PIXAL, staring down at the workbench. "It felt so wrong lying to everyone. Especially to _you_. At first I . . . honestly, I was angry. I was so fed up with being tra—with being—with . . . "

"With being stuck in my head," said Zane, his voice quiet with guilt.

"Yes," whispered PIXAL. She shook her head roughly. "So at first I thought I'd just disappear and not tell anyone where I was, and it . . . it would serve everyone right." She avoided Zane's eyes. "Then for a while I told myself I really was keeping my identity secret to protect you. But I knew that wasn't really it; none of you keep your identities secret. Once I had calmed down, I thought about showing you who I was. But I knew you would ask me why I had left and . . . I didn't want to tell you I'd been unhappy."

"PIXAL . . . "

"So I just kept on keeping it a secret," said PIXAL, shrugging resignedly. "But all the time I felt _awful_. I was programmed to value truthfulness, just as humans do. I worried you would find out my identity by accident, and you would be angry I'd lied to you. Or you would lose all your trust for me."

"PIXAL, of course I trust you—"

"And after that I promised myself I would never lie again," interrupted PIXAL earnestly. "Especially not to make people happy. Especially not to shield them from unpleasant truths. I felt so much better once you knew I was Samurai X, I can't even describe it, and I don't want to go back to lying again."

There was a bit of silence. PIXAL wrapped her arms around herself and scowled resolutely down at her feet.

"I suppose that's silly," she mumbled.

"No, no." Zane finally found words. "I think that's wonderful of you."

" . . . You would." PIXAL tried to hide her smile.

"All right, so I may be biased." Zane grinned back. "But honestly, PIXAL, I get it now. You know I'm not angry with you about Samurai X, but you're right, I would have liked to know sooner. If you don't want to lie anymore, you don't have to."

"Appreciated," said PIXAL quietly. "I do realize this situation with elves and Santa is different, but . . . I'd rather figure it out on my own terms. Maybe I'll understand it better next year."

"More than fair," said Zane. "But then, you won't mind if I keep up the act myself?"

"I suppose it's fine," said PIXAL. "The little ones do seem to enjoy it."

"I'm glad to hear that," said Zane, eyeing an approaching family. "It seems our Santa really is rather terse with children, and I need to do damage control."

"Oh dear. Should we talk to him?" said PIXAL.

"That might just make him angrier . . . "

So damage control is what they did. Zane was still a big hit, and PIXAL was participating more now, greeting families and wishing them a good Christmas. She was still careful not to say anything that suggested she was a real elf, however.

Things eventually progressed to a crisis, though. Zane was holding up a three-year-old girl for a photograph when she got a little over-excited and tried to hug his head. The antlers had always been a tad loose; now they broke clean off and clattered to the floor.

The little girl went stiff, her mouth open and tears already starting to pool in her eyes. For all she knew, she might as well have snapped off Rudolph's leg.

"Oh—" Zane sputtered, caught off-guard. "Don't worry, it's all right—it's—"

"It's normal for reindeer to lose their antlers," interrupted PIXAL blandly, leaning over the workshop fence. "They shed them every year so they can grow new ones."

"Exactly." Zane relaxed, shooting PIXAL a look of eternal gratitude. "Thank you for the help, actually. I was having trouble getting these to come off, and I was really ready for the new pair to start growing."

The girl relaxed as well, pacified.

"That didn't hurt?" she said.

"Of course not." Zane chuckled gently, setting her down. "Thank you for asking."

After the family had moved on, Zane glanced back to PIXAL and raised his eyebrows.

"Everything I said was true," she said serenely. "Reindeer do lose their antlers."

Zane gave her a knowing smile.

"And she was about to be traumatized," said PIXAL, looking away. "That was an emergency."

"Mm-hmm . . . "

"Don't be smug." PIXAL huffed.

"I'm not smug. I'm very grateful." Zane squeezed her shoulder. "As long as you don't feel morally compromised?"

She sighed, then abruptly turned around and hugged him over the fence. He managed to get one arm around her, relieved that their first fight had resolved so quickly. For a second he thought he heard a muffled gagging sound from Santa's general direction, but he decided he must have imagined that.

"Hmm, they were right," said PIXAL, nuzzling into his shoulder. "You're exceedingly fuzzy."

Zane sighed, though it tapered off into a resigned laugh.

"Not you too . . . "

* * *

Lloyd was starting to get a little freaked out. He'd been searching the mall for hours, but there was no sign of an escaped prisoner. There was no sign of civilian panic either, which was good, but he was still getting worried. Who had the guards lost, and where was he hiding? It's not like Kryptarium's prisoners were easy to miss.

Stopping to gnaw a warm pretzel at the food court, Lloyd considered telling the others. Between the seven of them, they'd be sure to find the escapee much faster.

After a moment he shook his head, deciding against it. No way was he gonna risk ruining everyone's holiday spirits. They had already seemed so half-hearted about decorating and doing Christmas preparations, and he'd already worked so hard to cheer them up. The guys didn't come all the way back from the First Realm to get their Christmas ruined, come on! And Nya and PIXAL deserved to be happy too, they'd been through so much.

Lloyd stuffed the last of the pretzel into his mouth, chewing resolutely. Time to get back to the search. What the heck was he worried about? He'd led a tottering Resistance against forces of unspeakable evil, he'd lived days thinking his friends were dead, he'd watched the city crumble into despair and nearly crumbled with it. Both he and the city had crawled back onto their feet. Compared to _that?_ Finding some bumbling skeleton or safecracker should be easy.

Compared to what was _coming_ . . . oh boy.

He pushed that thought away desperately and turned to order another pretzel. One for the road.

* * *

Firstbourne sighed with relief as she approached the dragon cave. She had taken the long way home (passing through several other realms) to catch some extra-nice prey for her kids. They did their own hunting too, of course, but they were forbidden from crossing realms unsupervised and the First Realm could be a little sparse.

As she landed in front of the cave, she saw Ice pacing back and forth at the entrance. Seeing Firstbourne, the younger dragon came bounding out to meet her, squalling urgently.

Groaning, Firstbourne dropped her prey and hurried into the cave. What was it this time? Had Earth and Lightning finally done each other permanent harm? Had Fire gotten himself sick eating fish again? Had Wind snapped somehow?

Inside the cave, she found her other children in a state of chaos. Earth and Lighting were at the far side of the cave, vigorously trying to hide behind each other. (This made sense in only one of their cases.) Wind was crouched near the entrance, oddly intent. Instead of hiding from all the noise her brothers were making, she was stretching her neck out, lashing her tail and peering intensely at something near the center of the cave.

Fire was most daring. He was right at the center of the cave himself, gingerly pacing circles and examining—

—Firstbourne nearly had a heart attack. There was a tiny green form dragging itself across the floor.

Her eyes leaped around the cave, taking in the scene. There were crumbled golden eggshells up in the alcove. There was a slimy trail of yolk across the floor. This was way earlier than she'd expected the egg to hatch! What if something had gone wrong, and her not there to supervise? This was awful, what a terrible way to begin.

Fire glanced up, saw Firstbourne charging his way, and hastily skittered aside. The dragon mother bent tenderly over her newest offspring, licking off the last traces of yolk. The baby squeaked in protest, squirming. She was a little female (little by dragon standards anyway), sleek and lustrous green, her shape most similar to Fire's. When Firstbourne rolled her over to keep cleaning, the baby snapped her tiny jaws and blew out a spout of sparkling green light.

Firstbourne snorted, amazed. Green energy! A complex element—not what she would have expected, for her first egg in such a long time. Thank goodness she seemed to have hatched all right . . .

The older dragons were slowly getting over their "OH MY GLOB WHAT IS THAT?!" frenzy. They gathered around, watching solemnly as Firstbourne kept licking and nuzzling the new baby, encouraging her brand-new heart and lungs, learning Energy's scent, teaching her own scent to Energy. Fire and Wind drew the closest, fascinated. Firstbourne considered warning them to back off a bit, but decided not to. Good for them, being interested in their new little sister.

Finally Firstbourne finished the first bonding ceremony and pulled back, rumbling blissfully. She had missed caring for younglings. She could remember how all her previous children got so feisty after their first cleaning; they would hop right up, stumble their first few steps, then go bounding off across the cave, eager to escape before Mom decided to wash them again. Then they would spend days exploring every corner of their home, and it wouldn't be long before Firstbourne had to sleep across the entrance to keep them from toddling off into the lava pits just outside . . .

. . . She tilted her head, puzzled. Energy hadn't gotten up yet. Instead she had just rolled onto her side, spreading herself limply on the cave floor.

Huffing encouragement, Firstbourne leaned in to nuzzle her again. Energy kicked irritably under her mother's attention, but went limp again the minute Firstbourne stopped. Firstbourne gave a more urgent bark now, a command to get up. Squeaking drowsily, Energy lifted her head and stared up at her, her wide wet eyes trusting and curious.

But she didn't get up. After a moment her head drifted back down to the floor, as if it was too much struggle to hold it up for long. Firstbourne's heart clenched.

Something was very wrong.

* * *

Lloyd was really starting to get nervous. The mall was going to be closing soon, and he couldn't find those guards anywhere. Was the prisoner still inside the mall? Had he escaped somewhere? If he was still here, Lloyd wouldn't be able to keep the problem a secret from the others anymore. They'd want to know why he was staying behind searching a closed mall. And gosh, maybe it was selfish, but he'd been hoping to enjoy some time at home with everyone . . .

Meanwhile the prisoner himself was dying of boredom. Either people weren't as interested in the mall as Mr. Beasley had hoped, or word had gotten round that the mall's Santa was creepy this year. Either way, families had stopped coming to visit hours ago. Not that Garmadon enjoyed talking with all those little brats, but at least it had been entertaining to growl "Well, I don't think you're getting what you want this year!" after hearing every kid's list. Now he had nothing to do except think about how much his beard itched. How did his brother manage one of these? And his lower arms were _killing_ him; they really weren't meant to be a substitute plump belly.

Worse yet, the Nindroids appeared to have reconciled. Yuck. Although at least they were now too lost in each other's company to pay any attention to him.

Sighing, he slid down in his chair and glared at the small TV some bright soul had installed near Santa's throne. It was supposed to keep kids entertained if there was a long line, and also distract Santa-phobic kids long enough for their parents to take a picture. The endless loop of Christmas cartoons was muted, thank goodness, but the constant swirl of bright, happy colors made Garmadon sick.

Still, it's not like he had anything better to do. It beat watching those two tin cans batting their eyelashes at each other. He glowered at the TV for a while, wondering if he could burn a hole in it with his eyes.

Soon enough he found himself actually paying attention to the show. It had a very strange premise. Some children had built a man out of snow . . . it took a while for Garmadon to realize that was the same stuff he'd seen coating the ground outside the prison bus . . . But then they put a top hot on the snowman's head, and he came to _life_. And then he seemed to run around causing quite a lot of mayhem.

Garmadon frowned, watching as Frosty had his tribulations getting to the North Pole. The world certainly worked in very strange ways. You could bring things to life by putting hats on them? He'd thought you could only bring things to life with the purple magic he used to have . . . like he'd done with the Colossus . . .

Inspiration struck him like a ton of road salt. What was he sitting here for?! There was his new evil plan, right there! If you could bring things to life with hats, he didn't need his purple magic anymore; _he could build another Colossus!_

Mr. Beasley came scurrying up to the mall workshop about fifteen minutes later, all out of breath.

"Oh my goodness! You're still here?!" he said to Zane and PIXAL. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know you'd be waiting all this time!"

"Waiting?" said Zane, puzzled.

"I got distracted, I completely forgot to tell you," said Mr. Beasley, mopping his forehead. "A few hours back we got a call from the guy who was supposed to play Santa. His car got totally wrecked by some vandals, he wasn't able to make it here today. I didn't know you guys would keep trying to run the workshop all on your own!"

Zane and PIXAL were staring at each other blankly.

"Then . . . who was . . . "

They turned to look at their Santa—and got another shock. He was stark gone.

"He was right here!" cried Zane.

"Who was?" Mr. Beasley eyed them worriedly.

"The mall Santa," said Zane. "Someone arrived here hours ago . . . He wasn't very good with kids, but we thought . . . "

"Oh no." Mr. Beasley had gone very pale.

"What's wrong?" asked PIXAL.

"That's why I was looking for you in the first place," Mr. Beasley groaned, holding his head. "I thought we might need some more backup. Lloyd's been spending the last few hours searching for an escaped Kryptarium prisoner."

Zane and PIXAL exchanged another, utterly horrified look.

"Oh _no_."

* * *

Lloyd, Zane, and PIXAL were all holed up in the employees-only room, having a crisis meeting.

"We're so sorry, Lloyd," said Zane, his guilty expression contrasting unfortunately with his Rudolph nose. "I can't believe we didn't realize."

"It's . . . it's okay, Zane," sighed Lloyd. "I guess that's not what you would have expected. Heh, no wonder the ankle monitor kept saying the guy was still in the mall . . . "

"We should have looked closer," said PIXAL. "I should have scanned him. To think! We let so many children go up to him!"

"Ugh." Lloyd winced, while Zane and PIXAL hung their heads miserably. "Well, it's too late to change that now. And at least nobody got hurt! . . . I think. Yet." He shook his head, trying to find a bright side. "But it's fine! You guys can help me search now. It would be really handy, those guards I talked to at the beginning have really been making themselves scarce. Wouldn't even tell me who was missing, either. Last I heard, the guy was still in the mall—"

Just then the door opened, and Mr. Beasley stuck his head in.

"Bad news," he said thinly. "The folks from Kryptarium just told me they tracked down the guy's ankle monitor. He broke it off somewhere on the city outskirts."

A groan went up from the three warriors.

"He could be anywhere now!" said Lloyd. "Oh mannn . . . I guess we'd better start searching the city. And maybe I'll phone Kryptarium, ask who they're missing. It'll be easier to find the guy if we know who we're looking for."

"We can't apologize enough, Lloyd," said PIXAL softly.

"Hey, hey, don't worry!" Lloyd held up his hands. "It's gonna be okay, we'll find him. We're not gonna let this ruin Christmas, right?"

PIXAL and Zane exchanged a glance, then nodded resolutely.

"Oh, and hey," said Lloyd, as they headed out. "Maybe . . . let's not mention this to the others? It's not an emergency just yet, we don't need to get everyone all stressed out. It's Christmas."

"Their help searching might be useful," said Zane uncertainly.

"Guys, c'mon! Please? If we don't find the guy in one day, then we can tell them. But there's no use ruining the Christmas spirit early, is there?"

Zane and PIXAL snuck each other guilty looks, knowing that if Christmas was ruined it would kind of be their fault.

"All right," said Zane at last. "I suppose we can keep it a secret for one day."

"This lying to make others happier business is getting to be a habit," sighed PIXAL under her breath. "I knew it."

Still, they followed Lloyd quietly out of the storage room. It was only a good quarter-minute later that Lloyd suddenly stopped in his tracks, then whirled around to stare at Zane as if he'd never seen him before.

"Wait. Zane, why are you wearing a clown nose?!"


	5. There's a World Outside Your Window

**And now, we return to the cutest band of uncultured savages this show's ever seen!**

 **. . . I'll leave you to guess if I mean Hunters, dragons, or the ninja. :P**

 **Completely unrelated (I swear!), I just realized that not all the Hunters' names get used in the show; I didn't know some of them myself until I stumbled across the wiki. Chew Toy, Daddy No-Legs, and Jet Jack are clear enough I guess, and Muzzle's that little fella who speaks in growls. Arkade is the one with the welding mask and the slot-machine chest. All others so far are ones I made up myself!**

* * *

If Faith had thought a night's rest would be rejuvenating, she was sorely mistaken. Emphasis on _sorely_. What the heck, she was used to hard work, running and fighting and wrangling dragons; how did puttering about in the fields all day leave her this achy?

She had to set a good example for the others, though. Groaning, she clambered off her sleeping mat and got ready for another day of work.

She shivered as she got dressed, picking out some of her more ragged, dirty clothes. Harvest work was messy. Based on how many fields they'd covered yesterday, they should be finishing up today. Perhaps they would need to build new storage facilities . . . A nice problem to have, she supposed.

There was a knocking on the door.

"Are you up?" shouted Jet Jack from the other side. "We're heading out soon!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming." Faith opened the door, then stopped short. "Jet Jack."

She'd said that particular name in that particular tone so many times by now, she thought it must have worn a groove into her throat. It was stunning how Jet Jack just _never_ ran out of ways to annoy her.

"You don't have to make that face," snorted Jet Jack. "Chew Toy had an idea!"

"I should have guessed," deadpanned Faith.

"No, no, listen." Jet Jack waved her hands. "You remember, back when it was hot. Remember how you would feel more hot if you wore armor, and less hot if you took off your clothes?"

Faith raised an eyebrow in concession.

"Well, Chew Toy figured out that it works the other way too! When it's cold, you can wear more clothes, and you'll be less cold!" Jet Jack gestured at her outfit proudly.

"And that would be the reason you're wearing . . . " Faith took a guess. "Seven shirts?"

"Eight," said Jet Jack cheerfully. "And four pairs of leggings."

Faith facepalmed.

"You should try it!" insisted Jet Jack. "It's so much better. I can't even feel the wind!"

"You look like a fool."

"But it's so worth it."

Faith only shook her head, shutting the door behind her. The cold pierced her ragged shirt instantly, but she resisted the urge to flinch. A little extra warmth was _not_ worth her dignity.

To her chagrin, all the other Hunters going to the fields were bundled up just like Jet Jack. They must have scrounged up every last piece of clothing in the village—there were children wearing oversized shirts from their parents, smithy workers with rags wrapped around their arms and stuffed down their fronts.

"You see, everyone's doing it," said Jet Jack, trotting at her side.

"And _everyone_ looks like a fool," said Faith tartly.

Jet Jack still wore her metal visor as always, but Faith could _still_ see her rolling her eyes.

"Hey Redskull!" called Arkade, as they all headed off to the fields. "Did you remember anything more about Christmas?"

"Hmmmm, maybe." Redskull smiled mysteriously. "But let me get some work in first, get the old circulation flowing, eh? Then maybe I'll remember better."

Faith sighed, grudgingly grateful. She had expected to have lots of trouble convincing scrappy warriors to spend hours drudging in the fields. But so far, everyone was being surprisingly helpful, and a lot of it was probably because they were eager for more of Redskull's stories. She got the feeling the old man secretly had her back.

Unlike _some_ people.

"I've got my eye on you, Jet Jack," Faith warned her second-in-command. "I swear we lost three whole buckets of grain yesterday. No flying today!"

"Yes Chief," said Jet Jack, a little too mildly. Faith squinted.

"I mean it."

"Sure Chief."

"I'm not joking."

"I know Chief."

"And that's not an invitation to try it when my back is turned!"

"There's a rock Chief."

"Huh?" Faith only registered the warning once she'd already tripped. She caught herself at the last second, cursing. If she hadn't been so busy glaring at Jet Jack—

"Tried to warn you, Chief."

Faith growled.

" _Don't_ get sassy with me, Jet Jack."

"'kay Chief." And the very model of a straight face.

Maybe it was a good thing Jet Jack wore that visor, decided Faith. She had a feeling that if she saw how often those eyes were laughing at her, she would either punch Jet Jack's lights out or (FSM forbid) start laughing herself.

* * *

Lloyd was trying to wake all his teammates, and having mixed results.

Zane and PIXAL were already up, nursing guilty consciences. Nya was probably already up being intense. Cole didn't want to budge. Kai's bunk was empty, and Kai was gone. Jay's bunk was empty, but he was in Zane's. Nobody questioned it. Random rearrangements happened a lot these days.

"C'monnnnn, guys," singsonged Lloyd, smiling wearily. "Up and attem."

"No." Cole searched for hidden dimensions in his pillow.

"We've got a busy day today!" Lloyd tried to sound chipper.

" _Again?_ " Cole moaned. "I thought we were done with the mall."

"Yeah, but now we have to do our headquarters!" said Lloyd. "And all the other Christmas stuff. We still have to get a tree, and put up all the decorations, and make cookies, and fruitcake, and the Christmas stew—"

Cole's groan rose to a pitch that nearly drowned Lloyd out. Down below, Jay blinked awake and looked around blearily. Realizing that Zane was gone, he yawned and crawled out of the bunk, only to creep across the room and crawl into Cole's.

"Get out, you heat-seeking missile," grumbled Cole.

"Make me."

Cole groaned again, but couldn't bring himself to move vigorously enough to throw Jay out. Lloyd shook his head, a little frustrated.

"Okay, you guys. I'll give you a few more minutes while I find Kai and Nya. Then when I come back, you're getting out of bed one way or the other, all right?"

Assorted groans. Shaking his head again, Lloyd gave Kai's empty bunk an anxious glance and headed out of the bunkroom.

After he had gone, Jay sighed and rolled over to stare at the ceiling, swinging one arm over the edge of Cole's bunk.

"Guys?" he said. "What happened to the little brat who used to come in here and jump on us yelling about Christmas?"

Cole only grunted into his pillow, but Zane nodded in agreement.

"He's definitely come a long way, hasn't he?"

Jay sighed. After a moment he looked over to Cole and smacked his arm.

"Better wake up, Cole-for-Christmas. You know Lloyd's gonna be bringing cold water next time he shows up."

"Ughhh. Geeeeeeeeeeeez . . . " Cole heaved himself up on his elbows, bleary-eyed and majestic in bed-head glory. "I had like two hours of sleep . . . "

Jay had been cracking up muffledly at Cole's hair, but now he grew morose.

"Ack. Garmadon or Hunters?"

"Neither. Stone Warriors this time." Cole scraped at one eyelid. "Throwback Thursday. Woohooooooo."

"I get those all the time," said Jay, shrugging.

"Mine are mostly Nindroids," said Zane. "I don't understand why they only began to give me trouble _now_ , but . . . "

Cole groaned again, trying to pat down his hair.

"But you're right, Jay. I really miss when he was a little squirt. And not just because I could smack him with a pillow and go back to sleep."

"Yeah. Don't get me wrong, I'm proud we raised the kid right, but geez . . . he's so grown-up . . . " sighed Jay, hanging off the edge of the bunk. Zane regarded him, upside-down.

"I guess that makes one of him."

He chuckled when Jay tried to poke him in the nose.

They eventually managed to drag Cole out of bed. Nya was in the kitchen gulping down granola, but Lloyd was still going around and around looking for Kai. He was starting to look a little panicked. Jay, Cole, and Zane exchanged glances, nervousness starting to creep over them as well.

Just when they were about to join Lloyd in searching, the front door opened and Kai came in, his shoes covered in snow. He slipped through a half-opened door in a way that made it clear he was trying to be sneaky, but no such luck.

" _There_ you are!" Lloyd swooped upon him, while the others breathed sighs of relief and turned to breakfast.

"Where were you?" scolded Lloyd. "This early in the morning?!"

Kai stood in the hallway staring at him incredulously, amazed that his former little _pipsqueak_ of a brother now had the gall to _lecture_ him.

"Was out," he said at last, hanging up his hat.

"Out _where?_ "

"Just out," said Kai resolutely, hanging up his jacket. "Doin' stuff."

"Uhh-huuuuuuuh," sang Cole, Nya, and Jay in perfect unison, while Zane muffled a laugh.

"All of you shut up." Grinning sheepishly, Kai slipped past Lloyd and headed for the kitchen. Lloyd followed him, unamused.

"You can't just disappear like that, we were getting worried about you—"

Kai sat, doggedly spreading cream cheese on a bagel, while Lloyd continued to yammer at him and the others asked very solicitously how Skylor was doing. Geez, you try to get out of the house for an hour or two.

Finally Lloyd wound himself down.

"All right, you guys finish breakfast," he said, sighing. "I have to make some phone calls. Zane and PIXAL, you're coming with me for . . . _shopping_." He looked significantly at the two Nindroids, who nodded slightly.

"Shoppinh?" said Jay with his mouth full. "Thought we weren't doin' presens thish year."

"Grocery shopping," said Lloyd, already edging towards the door. "For the cookies and stuff."

"Thought Wu already got that yesterday?"

Lloyd was already gone.

"Huh . . . " Jay blinked after him, puzzled. Then he looked around at the others, checking if they had found that weird too. Zane and PIXAL seemed oddly preoccupied with their breakfasts. Cole had his head on his arms and was snoring lightly.

"Overwhelmed by excitement, eh?" said Jay. He patted Cole's head and stole his bagel.

"So, right back to work?" said Kai wearily, picking up his breakfast dishes.

"I guesh," said Jay, again with his mouth full.

"I don't know about you guys," said Kai cautiously, "but if it were up to me, we wouldn't be going all-out like this. I'd be happy to just throw a wreath on the front door and call it a day."

"And get shum more shleep," said Jay, jerking a thumb at Cole.

"Exactly. Nobody call me a Scrooge, but man, I'm really not feeling the whole Christmas thing this year. Not _this_ much."

The others mumbled agreements, looking around to make sure Lloyd wasn't in earshot. For a while there was a glum silence.

"It seems to mean a lot to Lloyd, though," said Zane quietly. "He seems to really want us to have a normal Christmas this year."

"For sure," said Nya. "And hey, maybe he's right. A little extra decorating has gotta be better than sitting around moping, right?"

More half-hearted agreements. Cole snored on.

"All right," said Kai, smiling resolutely. "For the little green guy."

"Who's bossy and acts older'n all of us," remarked Jay.

"Ugh, don't go changing my mind."

"Mmph. I call dibs on the outside lights." Jay crammed the last of Cole's bagel into his mouth. "Sho Zane, Pix, where ya guys going shopping?"

"Uhhh . . . I'm not sure," hedged Zane.

"You better not be going out to get presents, make the rest of us look stupid for not havin' any," said Nya.

"No, no . . . "

"Extra mistletoe?" sang Jay.

"You wish," snorted Zane.

"Then _what?_ "

"Uhh . . . I . . . " Zane looked helplessly to PIXAL, who was scowling down at a grapefruit half. "I think . . . uhh . . . we need more . . . paper towel? . . . "

The others were staring at him now, wondering where this stumbling attempt at deception would end.

"Or some kind of cleaning fluid?" mumbled Zane. "Or, uh . . . "

"We're searching for an escaped Kryptarium prisoner!" blurted PIXAL.

" _What?!_ "

Zane looked woeful, while PIXAL folded her arms in defiance.

"Someone escaped his guards while doing community service at the mall yesterday. Lloyd wanted to hold off on telling the rest of you so your Christmas wouldn't be ruined."

The others digested this.

"Man," said Kai. "Christmas really _does_ mean a lot to him this year."

The others sighed.

"All right," said Nya. "We'll pretend we don't know."

"What?" said PIXAL indignantly. She'd been aiming to _reduce_ the amount of lying going on around here.

"Zane, PIXAL, keep us posted on the situation," Nya continued. "And keep pressuring Lloyd to tell us so we can start helping you. In the meantime, we'll try to get the Christmas work done ASAP."

"I hope we find the escapee soon enough for that to be unnecessary," sighed Zane.

"Relaaax. He must be one of the small-time villains, anyway," shrugged Kai. "They'd tell us if it was somebody important."

Meanwhile Lloyd was leaning his forehead against the wall, waiting and waiting for someone at Kryptarium to pick up. He'd already called multiple times, and nobody ever answered.

They were all out searching for the big-time villain on the loose.

* * *

"Jet Jack, get down here _right now!_ "

Amazingly, Jet Jack heard and obeyed. Faith glowered at her as she landed lightly on her feet, bucket swinging in her hand.

"What did I tell you?"

Jet Jack cocked her head innocently.

"I warned you once. We can't afford to lose grain. If you think this is a joke—"

"But Chief—"

"You and I are going to have a talk later! Now give me that bucket, before you spill any more—" Faith cut off as Jet Jack willingly handed her the bucket. It was completely empty.

"I was just fetching some water for us," said Jet Jack. "But if you'd rather I didn't . . . "

Faith glared at her for a moment. Eventually she slapped the bucket back into Jet Jack's hand and walked off, fuming. Jet Jack glanced to a nearby knot of Hunters, spread her hands in excessive innocence, then boosted off again. Arkade shook his head after her.

She returned by foot, carrying a ladle and a bucket full of cool water. Daddy No-Legs might take a lot of ragging about his disastrous early rainwater-collection attempts, but now that he'd finally gotten his system working, nobody complained about the stores of clean water they could all enjoy. Sure beat chopping up cacti.

Everyone gathered eagerly around for a drink. Usually there was a lot of shoving and squabbling in situations like this, but today it was much less pronounced: Hunters waited more-or-less quietly for their turn, and didn't hog the ladle. Faith noticed, puzzled. Had all this stuff about being nicer for Christmas actually stuck?

Everyone sure seemed to have Christmas on the brain.

"So tell us, Redskull," nagged Arkade. "What did you eat for Christmas?"

"What did you put on the houses?"

"What else do you remember?"

"Hmmmm." Redskull rubbed his chin. "Ahh, it's coming back to me! We would make circles out of plants—there were some that stayed green all year—and we would put them on our doors. And sometimes we would find whole _trees_ that stayed green all year, and we would take them into the village and hang shiny things on them. They would sparkle all over, especially when we put candles on them too."

The Hunters ooh'd and ah'd at the thought.

"We would put shiny things on our houses too," said Redskull. "Oh, we would sing special songs! I forgot the special songs."

"Can you try really hard to remember them?"

"I might have a book of those somewhere too," said Redskull thoughtfully. "Glad I turned out to be a hoarder. Speaking of my books! I need to find those recipes. There was a sort of pudding made from dried fruits and lots of sugar and eggs . . . Roasted birds . . . All kinds of sweets . . . "

"Sounds great!"

"And you know, we would all dress warmly for the cold, just like this."

"I knew we were onto something!"

"Oh yes, and there was this thing everyone would say to each other—how'd it go—ahh, 'Marry Christmas'! That was it."

That one got some bewildered silence.

"I'm engaged," said Tsippa plaintively.

"Oh, nobody actually married anything," scoffed Redskull, waving a hand. "That was just something we would say. Not sure why, but everyone liked it."

The Hunters kept peppering Redskull with questions, some of them abandoning their work to gather around him. From nearby, Faith looked up from her raking and eyed the hubbub warily. Marriage? Circles of plants? Sparkling houses? This Christmas stuff was _weird._

Muzzle broke from the group at one point and held out the water bucket, offering her a drink. She hesitated, but finally shook her head and waved for Muzzle to go on. She was too proud to drink after making a fool out of herself over this water. She went back to the village a while later and got some water herself.

* * *

Firstbourne was pacing. She had waited restlessly through the night, hoping that Energy just needed some time to recover from hatching prematurely. That was clearly not the case: the baby didn't perk up at all. She only seemed to grow more lethargic.

Most of the other dragons were lurking around the cave, peering at Energy anxiously. They sensed their mother's unease, and they knew it couldn't mean anything good.

Wind was the most in love with her new little sister. She hovered over the hatchling, nuzzling her lightly, trying to coax her into batting at Wind's whiskers. She got a few weak attempts, which tapered off into nothing. Huffing worriedly, she looked up to Firstbourne, her eyes full of a frightened question. Firstbourne shook her head, lost.

Energy closed her eyes, her sides fluttering with each ragged breath.

* * *

"Sis, I don't know if this is a good idea." Kai was supposed to be holding the ladder steady, but instead he was looking warily back at the kitchen.

"Relaaaax, Kai, it's just popcorn. And we won't even be eating most of it, it's for the garlands." Nya pulled her head out of the attic and rolled her eyes at her brother. "Besides, we have an automatic popper. I don't think he could even manage to burn it."

"Knowing Cole? He'll find a way," grumbled Kai.

"Awh . . . quit fussin' and take this," said Nya, pulling a box of Christmas decorations out of the attic. "Careful, those are gla—"

There was a shout from the kitchen, and Kai's grip faltered. The box of ornaments crashed to the floor. Kai and Nya both cringed at the hearty crunching sound the contents made.

" _Kai!_ " groaned Nya.

"Wasn't my fault, you let go too soon!"

"Don't pin this on me!" Nya hopped off the ladder, pushed Kai back, and gingerly turned the box over, generating a melodic jingle of broken glass. "Oh mannnn . . . They must be ground to _powder_ in there."

"Oh, so what," said Kai sulkily. "It's just a few dumb ornaments, they don't matter _that_ much."

"Yeah, 'cos nothing matters to _you_ ," snapped Nya.

"Hey, don't you—"

"Geez!" Nya ignored him, worrying at the tape on top of the box. "These ornaments lasted for years. They survived every time the _Bounty_ crashed, and now we have to lose them like _this?_ "

Kai looked stricken for a moment. He was just about to say something when another shout came from the kitchen.

"Guys! A little help here?"

Leaving the box unopened, Kai and Nya hurried over.

They stopped in horror. Half the kitchen had vanished under foaming mountains of popcorn, which were still growing by the second. Cole was thrashing his way through the avalanche, trying to get at the power cord of the popcorn machine.

"What happened?!" sputtered Nya.

"I don't know! I put in the corn, I doze off for like five seconds, and then suddenly _this!_ " Cole momentarily vanished under the billowing masses of popcorn. A moment later he resurfaced, gasping, and held up the power cord.

"Phew! Got it." He started as the popcorn machine gave a few final bangs from somewhere underneath its end product.

"Oh _man_ ," said Nya, looking despairingly at the kitchen. "Cole, what the heck. How much popcorn did you use?"

"Four cups, like ya said."

"I meant four cups _already popped!_ " sputtered Nya. "That's like four spoonfulls unpopped!"

"Ohhhhh . . . " Cole shook popcorn from the folds of his shirt, inadvertently still yawning. "That'd explain it."

Kai was munching idly on a handful of popcorn, watching the fiasco.

"Toldja he'd find a way," he remarked. Nya glared.

"Are you gonna stand there being a wise guy, or are you gonna help clean up?"

"I'm not the one who gives sloppy instructions for popcorn-making."

"Now you _listen here_ —"

"Guys, cut it out," interrupted Cole. "It's Christmas. Don't fight . . . "

Kai and Nya gave each other a grumpy look, but at last sighed and turned back to the kitchen.

"I guess we're gonna have a _lot_ of garlands this year," said Nya. "I'll get the vacuum."

Just then there was an odd snapping sound, and the clock on the kitchen stove went blank. Kai reached over and wiggled the lightswitch, but the lights didn't turn on.

"Hey guys?" called Jay's voice from outside. "I think I plugged into something I shouldn't have . . . "

Kai, Cole, and Nya looked at each other and sighed.

* * *

"Anyone with empty buckets, bring them over here!" Faith shouted hoarsely, straightening from a patch of barley. There were still plenty of edible grains here, praise be. She wiped freezing sweat from her forehead and resisted the urge to blow into her hands. The hard work warmed her up, but the second she stopped moving, all the sweat on her body turned to knives of cold. Jet Jack landed next to her and tucked away her wings.

"You should look into some more layers, Chief."

"Drop the subject," said Faith, turning away.

"Chief, couldn't you find any extra clothes?" Daddy No-Legs came skittering by with an armload of sacks. "It's getting colder out here, you must be freezing."

"I'm fine, No-Legs," called Faith wearily. Little Eskie, one of the smallest children in the village, looked up from gathering handfuls of barley from the ground.

"Aren'chu cold, Ms. Metal?" she asked. "Here, you can have mine!"

Unwrapping one of the rags from her arm, she held it out to Faith. Faith stared down at her for a moment, then very gently pushed Eskie's hand back.

"Thank you, honeycomb; that's very kind. But you need it more than I do."

Eskie looked uncertain for a moment, but then nodded solemnly and put the rag back on. Faith went back to work, tossing Jet Jack a warning glance.

"Not a word."

Jet Jack raised her eyebrows.

"No," said Faith sternly. "I'm not going to take insubordination just because I'm the only one here with some self-respect."

"Freezing your rear off is a funny way of respecting yourself," snarked Jet Jack.

"I don't feel a thing." Faith lied outrageously. "I can choose not to let it bother me."

"Fair enough," said Jet Jack. "I suppose you're just planning to cut down barley by chattering your teeth like that."

Faith froze—from a few rows over No-Legs gave a strangled snort—then turned on Jet Jack with a growl. Her second-in-command took a few hasty steps back. Her posture was overtly submissive, but she was struggling furiously against a grin, anticipating the upcoming squabble. Once in a while she got Faith to snap; they would bark back and forth and call each other names for a minute, then it always ended with Faith flustered at losing her cool and Jet Jack delighted at getting the best of her.

Well. Maybe today was the day this cheeky daughter-of-a-Skulkin got punched in the mouth. Faith was just beginning to roll up her ragged sleeves—Jet Jack backed farther away, all but giggling by now—some of the nearby Hunters were looking up with unconcealed interest—

—But the moment shattered when a dark shadow shot over them all. It lasted half a second, gliding over the fields like a vulture's shadow. But it was much, much bigger than a vulture.

Everyone's head snapped back. There, directly overhead—the unmistakable silhouette of Firstbourne, her wings spread to catch the wind.

It got deathly quiet. Everyone silently followed the dragon with their eyes. She was flying straight onwards, without even glancing at the village, and she was probably at least half a mile up. But no dragons had come within sight of the Hunter village since the ninja left this realm. Firstbourne hadn't come this close since the time she almost leveled the village to the ground.

They were all hardened warriors; they weren't afraid. But their hearts beat a little faster. Prosthetic limbs drew a little closer to bodies, their owners grimacing in phantom pain. When Firstbourne's giant wings flexed into a ponderous flap, it was too far away to hear the sound—but everyone seemed to hear a faint memory of leathery skin beating air, mixed with an echo of screams and crumbling buildings.

Not a pleasant sight.

As Firstbourne receded to a speck in the distance, Faith was brought back to reality by a piercing breeze. She shook herself from her trance. Looking around, she saw the other Hunters looking chilled, uneasy; some of the very small children were winding up to cry. This situation needed to be salvaged before panic set in. Faith raised her voice.

"Well, she's gone," she called gruffly. "And nobody's ever been mauled by a dragon's shadow. The crops won't harvest themselves while we stand here gaping at the sky."

It seemed to work. Everyone quietly went back to harvesting. But the mood was decidedly somber now, and it took a long time for conversation to restart.

Jet Jack crouched next to Faith as she worked. Faith met her shielded eyes seriously, their near-fight abandoned.

"Why did she come so close?" said Jet Jack, so quietly that only Faith could hear. Faith shrugged.

"There are no rules about where dragons get to fly," she said, more casually than she felt. "As long as they don't attack us, we have no cause to worry. Perhaps we should get used to seeing them in the sky."

Jet Jack thought about it for a moment, then nodded silently and went back to work. Faith did the same, setting her teeth. Fantastic. Now the cold brushing her skin was competing with the cold churning in her gut.


	6. There Is No Peace on Earth, I Said

**Huh, finally get around to chapter-titling with the same Christmas song used for the fic's title.**

* * *

Cole, Jay, Kai, and Nya were still trying to clean up popcorn and get the power back on when a radio call came in.

"Come on down, everyone," said Zane. "Lloyd's calling you in to help with the search."

"Woah, you guys convinced him fast!" said Jay.

"Not really. We met Wu down here, and he did most of the convincing. Anyway, we're all waiting! Meet us in front of the community center."

"Well," said Jay, hanging up. "The outside is covered with dead lights, and the inside is covered with popcorn. I'd say we're totally ready for Christmas!"

The others groaned as they pulled on their masks, heading out the door.

They got down to the community center quickly, and found Wu, Lloyd, Zane, and PIXAL waiting. Lloyd looked a little down in the mouth.

"Hi guys," he called. "Uh, so . . . Zane probably told you we needed some help down here?"

"Yep," said Kai. "That must be some really heavy-duty shopping."

"Uhm." Lloyd reddened, looking at his feet. "See, uh, it's kinda . . . not actually . . . "

"It's more like looking for some Kryptarium escapee," said Cole flatly. Lloyd's head snapped up.

"You knew?!"

"Since this morning," said Nya.

"And you didn't say anything?" said Lloyd.

"Hey, you can't get mad about it," said Kai, shrugging. "You didn't say anything to _us_ , either."

"Well . . . " Lloyd rubbed the back of his head. "I was going to, but . . . well . . . "

"Can we all just get back to only lying about elves and reindeer?" interrupted PIXAL, arms folded. Everyone looked at her, startled, then sighed.

"What she said," said Cole ruefully.

"All right." Lloyd pulled on his mask. "So, this is gonna sound nuts, but we have no clue who we're actually looking for. The guards didn't tell me the first day, and ever since then I haven't been able to reach Kryptarium by phone. I guess the next step would be to go down there in person, so . . . uh, I guess . . . " He faltered.

"I'll go," said Wu gently.

"Thanks." Lloyd avoided his eyes. The others gave each other pained glances. If that kid ever came within five miles of Kryptarium again, it would be a miracle.

"Meanwhile, I guess we should split up the city pizza-style," said Lloyd, pulling himself together. "PIXAL, Zane, and I already did the city center. Now we can fan out to the edges. Ask people if they've seen—"

A shadow suddenly fell over them all, and a muffled roar split the air. Everyone froze, then looked up just in time to see Firstbourne landing heavily at the edge of the city square.

"Uh-oh." Cole took in her body language. "I think it's something bad this time!"

They all hurried over to the dragon mother, who was still panting from her journey. She looked over them wearily, visibly relaxing a bit in relief.

"What is it?" asked Wu, reaching up to stroke her neck.

She rumbled urgently, rearranged herself to face the ninja, then lowered her nose to the cement. A muffled cough, then suddenly her jaws opened and something green and leggy and the size of a Labrador fell out.

Everyone had a mini heart attack.

"What the HECK?"

"Is she sick?"

"Is that how dragons give birth?!"

Firstbourne cocked her head, mildly offended by the uproar. Did they have a problem with her kid?

"Everyone calm down," called Zane. "Some animals carry their young in their mouths to protect them. I'm guessing dragons do as well."

"Ohh . . . Hey, lemme see!"

Everyone swarmed closer, forming a tight knot around the hatchling. Wu, gingerly brushing off strands of dragon saliva, lifted little Energy into his arms. She looked around woozily, then fixed her eyes on Lloyd, squeaked, and began to struggle towards him.

"She either likes you or she wants a piece of you," observed Cole. Lloyd backed away uneasily.

Meanwhile Energy was still wriggling, although her strength was already starting to give out. She finally stretched her neck towards Lloyd and spat a puff of frustrated sparkles.

"Green energy! Lloyd, she's got your element!"

Energy keened, flopping over Wu's arm in defeat. Meanwhile Lloyd was looking at the hatchling with almost-literal stars in his eyes. Wu smiled and held Energy out, and Lloyd accepted her reverently, stroking the soft crest behind her head.

"Hi there," he breathed. She squirmed happily and laid her head on his shoulder. Ignoring the others cooing and fishing for their phones, Lloyd looked to Wu.

"Are baby dragons supposed to be this sleepy?"

Wu spread his hands. They both looked up to Firstbourne. She growled urgently, trying to indicate by the angling of her head that this definitely wasn't normal.

"Firstbourne is too nervous for everything to be all right," said Wu grimly.

"She does feel kind of . . . off," said Lloyd, still stroking Energy. "I can't describe it, but . . . I can kinda feel something weird about her vibe. Like she's sick."

"She's sick?" The others grew sober now, gathering closer to examine the baby. Wu looked to Firstbourne.

"What can we do?"

Firstbourne blinked down at him despairingly. She had hoped _he_ would know.

* * *

The harvest was finally finished. The throne room wasn't in use anymore, so it had been converted to a granary. Faith counted their blessings earnestly—it was already filled to the ceiling with grain, and more still coming in.

"Arkade, you're good with math, right?" Faith flinched as a cold breeze wormed through the holes in her shirt. "Could you figure out how much more space we'll need?"

"Sure thing, Chief. Where are you planning to put the extra?"

"Depends on how much there is," said Faith tactfully. She honestly didn't know yet; she had been thinking of just portioning out baskets of grain to each Hunter's house, but that seemed like a recipe for trouble. Not like she didn't trust her Hunters, but she wasn't sure if they trusted each other. There would be accusations of grain-hoarding, actual grain-hoarding, squabbles over who seemed to get two handfuls more than the others . . .

"For now, just estimate it in sacks," she said. "Keep piling them up in the center of the village."

"On it, Chief." Arkade tapped a hand jauntily to the top of his welding mask, saluting. "Marry Christmas."

Faith had already been turning away, but now she turned around again to stare after Arkade blankly. Oh great, now he was doing it too? Everyone was going stark mad about this Christmas business.

She walked through a village buzzing with activity. The chill of seeing Firstbourne had worn off by now, and everyone was bustling around talking at once. Some Hunters were bringing in the last of the grain, while others were starting to winter-proof their houses.

"Someone get me a tarp or something, my straw's blowing away!"

"Hey, tell you what, let's put some mud in the cracks too, to hold the straw in."

"Good idea! Chief, can we borrow some of the water supply?"

"Just don't use more than you need," Faith called over her shoulder.

"Fenko, get out of the straw!"

"I want that ladder when you're done with it!"

"Say, does this stuff burn? . . . OH HECK."

"Put it out, put it out!"

Faith eyed the commotion warily, but it was only a small fire and some Hunters were already beating it to death, so she headed onwards.

"Heyyy, look at this!" Chew Toy held aloft a large ring he'd woven from straw. "Ta-da!"

"It's like one of those plant circles!" squealed one of the kids.

"Only not green . . . " remarked another.

"They don't have to be green, do they?"

"Teach me how to make one!"

Faith didn't interfere there, either. They could spare the straw, they had a lot and it was no good for eating.

But she had to admit, it made her a little worried that everyone was so worked-up about Christmas. It wasn't like the Hunters to get this excited about anything that didn't involve bleeding, and she wasn't sure what to make of it all. What if they decided they wanted to go all the way and have the feast and everything? They didn't have _that_ much extra grain, Faith would still have to say no. What if they got mutinous?

And then, there was just something about all this Christmas stuff that gave her an odd ache inside. Maybe it made her think about the ninja too much.

Especially Wu. Faith caught herself fighting a wistful smile. Wonder what the little wretch was doing right now . . . Although, if she understood right, there'd been some kind of magical mumbo-jumbo aging him up rapidly, and he was probably older than Redskull by now. (Those ninja had some _weird_ stuff going on.) But still; somehow she could only think of him as the earnest, innocent, infinitely hopeful teenager who tagged along with her and the ninja, utterly clueless about . . . pretty much everything. _Not_ how she would have pictured the son of the First Spinjitzu Master. Sure, his naivety had kinda driven her up the wall. And sure, he was a rotten little liar and she kind of regretted not punching him that one time. And sure, he was maybe a bit of a coward, or a fool, or a dreamer, or any number of other things . . . And yet. Somehow he dragged out of her a bunch of mushy protective impulses she hadn't known she had. (And definitely would _not_ have admitted to.)

He'd probably have been delighted to see the Hunters falling for this sappy Christmas stuff. She wondered if the real world had managed to put any dents in that annoyingly pure little heart of his by now.

. . . Based on what she'd seen of him, probably not.

She was shaken from her cross-realm reverie by a spike in the noise nearby. She looked around and saw that Muzzle and another Hunter were railing at each other furiously. They were winding up to fight, some daggers were coming out, other Hunters were assembling to watch the show . . . Ugh. Better step in.

"All right, that's enough!" Faith strode over and forced herself in between the two Hunters, who continued flailing towards each other. "I said enough! Muzzle, put down that blade, I can cut you faster than you can cut me."

Muzzle waved his dagger around, gibbering in strident tones.

"I didn't touch his straw! He stole _mine_ , and he's trying to cover it up!" snapped Yuko, the other Hunter. Muzzle sprang at him again, howling.

"Muzzle!" barked Faith, holding him back. Meanwhile some of the assembled Hunters whistled or applauded ironically at Muzzle's language. No-Legs was the only one who could really _understand_ him, but his tone right now left little to the imagination.

"Stop encouraging them!" Faith glared wearily around at the audience. "Get out of here, all of you. Shoo. And the two of you, _drop it_. We're supposed to be a peaceful society now, remember? Which means we don't fight over stupid things like straw piles when there's plenty to go around!"

"You and Jet Jack fight all the time," said Yuko sulkily.

Faith blinked, thrown.

"That's . . . different."

Muzzle made a noise that was clearly a grumpy "How?"

Faith blinked again. Why did she suddenly feel like a mom dealing with two bratty children? And actually . . . now that they put it that way . . .

"Well, it just is," she said at last. "And besides. I thought you were all excited about Christmas. Aren't you doing that whole 'Christmas spirit' thing? Kindness and no fighting?"

Muzzle and Yuko both grumbled.

"Not much point doin' _that_ if we can't do any of the good stuff," muttered Yuko. Faith's heart sank. Here it came. She was about to have a rebellion on her hands, over Christmas pudding.

Meanwhile Muzzle was turning away in disgust, gabbling something in a jeering tone. Yuko parroted him even more jeeringly, Muzzle whirled with an angry screech, and Faith found herself again keeping them separated.

"I _said_ , _stop it_ . . . " she growled, feeling the last of her patience starting to fray.

Just then there was a brisk whine and _boom!_ of displaced air, and Jet Jack came shooting by. 95% of her landings were perfect, but the 5% she fumbled she fumbled _good_. Everyone ducked and shielded their heads as a mini-tornado whipped through the village, sending dust and straw flying. Jet Jack herself clipped a building, flipped over a couple of times, and crashed upside-down into a wall.

"Geez!" She kicked until she managed to tumble back upright, perfectly cheerful. "Did I miss the fight?"

Everyone else began to stand upright again and beat straw from their hair.

" _Well_." Faith tried to get her ponytail into order, majestically displeased. "There you go. Now neither of you has any straw. You can go get some more, but I don't want to see any more fighting!"

Muzzle and Yuko left meekly. So did the audience. Faith straightened her ragged shirt, grumbling, and gave Jet Jack a grudgingly approving look. At least her timing was good; it may have been an accident, but it sure settled the dispute.

She was startled when Jet Jack popped up her visor just long enough to wink. So that had been on purpose?

Dangit. Just when she was almost convinced she hated that kid.

"Last of the grain's been brought in," said Jet Jack, brushing off the topmost of her eight shirts. "There's so much! Are you sure we couldn't have just a _little_ Christmas food?"

Oh geez, not this again.

"No, Jet Jack. We don't know how long the winter will be, we can't afford to gamble."

"What about gifts?" said Jet Jack. "Maybe we could make something out of scrap metal, or—"

" _No!_ " said Faith, a little more sharply than she'd intended. Jet Jack backed up a little.

"All _right,"_ she said. "Well . . . anyway. Arkade's going to have the numbers ready for you soon."

She tipped a lazy salute and boosted off. Faith muffled a frustrated oath and headed off as well, plucking straw from her hair. Why'd she have to go and feel bad about snapping like that? She yelled at Jet Jack all the time, and she deserved it for being such a pain anyway.

. . . It was a little too much Iron Baron's style, and she knew it. But, just—she was tired, and achy, and freezing cold, she was sick of worrying about winter and mutinies, and honestly she was sick of hearing about Christmas. She'd said _no_. Why couldn't everyone shut up about it?

"Chief; a word, please?" called a familiar voice. Faith groaned. Old Redskull again. Now _he_ was going to start nagging her about Christmas too?

"Yes?" she said, as levelly as she could manage. Already she was rehearsing how to refute his suggestions—

"I know you don't like the idea, but you really should dress more warmly."

Whoops. Hadn't prepared for that one.

"It's only going to get colder," continued Redskull gently. "If you don't stay warm, you can get sick, or you might even die. You won't be any use to your Hunters that way, will you?"

"I . . . " stammered Faith.

"I know, you think it looks foolish." Redskull gave an amused breath. "Nobody's in position to judge, when they're all dressed the same."

Faith balked.

"I said I wasn't going to."

She thought her crisp tone would be clear enough, but Redskull only shrugged.

"And now you can change your mind."

Faith looked at him incredulously for a moment, then shook her head, turning away. That was lousy advice. How could she expect her Hunters to trust in her if she didn't stick to her guns?

"Faith," said Redskull quietly. "Listen to me. I know you try your best, but there will always be times when you're _wrong_."

She stopped in spite of herself.

"Which is more foolish?" continued Redskull. "Changing once you see your mistake? Or plowing ahead, doing something you _know_ is a bad idea, because you worry about looking stupid or weak?"

Faith clenched her jaw, grateful that Redskull couldn't see her face.

"Maybe Iron Baron needed to be right about everything." Redskull blandly jabbed below the belt. "But that was because he needed you all to fear him. You don't lead like that. You don't have to be afraid of admitting you're wrong once in a while. The Hunters will still respect you."

"Still?" thought Faith ironically. When had they started?

At last she shrugged and turned to walk away again.

"All right," she said over her shoulder. "Noted."

Redskull must have read the dismissal in her tone.

"There's principled, young one, and then there's just plain _stubborn_ ," he called after her. She wasn't sure if he was amused or exasperated, and she didn't wait around to find out.

* * *

The ninja had forgotten all about looking for the Kryptarium escapee. They were all huddled around little Energy. They had tried giving her chicken soup and beef jerky, both of which she'd nibbled half-heartedly. Lloyd had tried transferring some of his power to her, and Wu had tipped a little tea down her throat, but neither of those made a difference. They'd even talked to a vet, who had no idea what could be wrong.

Lloyd was holding the drowsy dragon in his arms now, stroking her head. The others sat around him soberly. The excitement of seeing Lloyd's element manifested in a baby dragon was giving way to a heavy dread that _anything_ to do with Green Energy was destined to suffer.

Firstbourne was sitting on her haunches, growing more hopeless by the minute. She could do nothing herself. The wisest human she knew could do nothing. If the son of the First Spinjitzu Master couldn't cure her baby, who could?

"I'm so sorry," said Wu softly, not meeting her eyes. "I don't know what else to try."

"We have to do _something_ ," said Lloyd. "The—the healing ritual you guys did on me. Maybe it would work on her too?"

"The tea that we used to heal you is gone with Mystake," said Nya bitterly.

"What about . . . I don't know, what do they do for preemie babies?"

"That's humans, why would it work on dragons?"

"We have to try _something!_ "

"How do you know we won't just make it worse?"

"Listen, right now I don't know if it _can_ get worse—"

"Wait, wait, wait! I just thought of something!" cried Jay.

The others turned to him hopefully.

"I just remembered something in the First Realm," said Jay. "This special plant Faith told me about. When I was asking her about that . . . weird drug plant . . . " He faltered, realizing he might have said too much.

"Weird drug plant?" said Cole, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeeeeeeah . . . " Jay coughed uneasily. "Uh, the one I ate the day after we got there? . . . "

A moment of silence as the others put two and two together.

"You were _high?!_ " exploded Cole.

"Off some weird plant?!" added Kai.

"Well, what did you think?" sputtered Jay, taking a few nervous steps back. "You all really thought I just randomly lost my marbles after crossing realms? Come on! I've been through way worse than that!"

"That explains so freaking much . . . " Kai dragged a hand down his face.

"But why would you eat an unfamiliar plant in a foreign realm, Jay?" said Zane. "I would have thought you knew better."

"I was starving!" protested Jay. "And it looked _exactly_ like lettuce! I mean . . . except for being purple . . . And, uh . . . covered in spikes . . . " He trailed off, reddening. "I was hungry, let's just go with that."

"And you thought you'd found food, but you didn't tell the rest of us, huh?" said Cole.

"There was just one sprig," mumbled Jay, reddening further. "And I kind of figured you'd react like _that_ , so **—** "

"—So you did know it was crazy to eat random purple spiky plants. _And yet_."

"Oh . . . just leave me alone." Jay plopped down on a park bench and covered his face.

"Excuse me, what's going on?" Nya finally got a word in edgewise. "Jay was on drugs?!"

"Believe me sis, it's better than the alternative." Kai blew out a tired breath and smiled wanly. He never thought he'd be saying this, but it was actually a relief to learn it had only been an accidental trip. Not thrilling, but still less worrisome than a mental break.

Meanwhile Cole sighed and sat down next to Jay, shaking his shoulder lightly.

"All right Zaptrap, all right. We're missing the original point here. What does a weird purple plant have to do with this little dragon here?"

"Gah." Jay reluctantly emerged from behind his mittens. "Well . . . you know, after I sobered up, I realized something had been weird about that. So when we were traveling with Faith, I asked her if she knew about any plants that made you act funny. And she said yeah, that was a plant they knew **—** it had a really stupid name, Purple Moonruffle or something sissy like that **—** and then she went on this whole long _boring_ lecture about all their other plants. For a desert realm, they had way too many plants." Jay rolled his eyes, huffing. "But anyway. I did remember one of the other plants, because it was kinda cool. They have this rare flower or something, that if you eat its leaves, you pretty much _can't_ die for a couple of days. That's how they survived all those crazy injuries, you know? When someone got their legs bit off or whatever, they'd give them a dose of that plant."

"And what you're saying is . . . maybe it'd work on the baby dragon too?" said Lloyd.

"I mean, it couldn't hurt to try," said Jay. "Could it?"

Wu looked up to Firstbourne.

"Do you know if you could ask the Hunters for some of that plant?"

Firstbourne drew her head back as far as it would go, horrified beyond measure. Go to the _Hunters?_ Were they all crazy? The Hunters made a sport out of _killing_ her children. They were used to her children killing _them_ in return, they saw every dragon as a threat to be eliminated. Wu might as well have told her to give up and slit her baby's throat right now. Of all the—

"Shhhhh, shhhh, hear me out," said Wu. Firstbourne blinked through a haze of red and realized her jaws were dripping lava. The ninja were huddled together, looking terrified that their master was about to be char-broiled in front of them, while Wu was standing fearlessly in front of Firstbourne's face, reaching up to stroke her muzzle.

"Easy," he whispered. "I know. You have a . . . history. And I suppose Faith is still in charge, and I know you and she have a little . . . extra history. But I promise you; she might be gruff on the surface, but she would be the first to show your child compassion. She has a good heart."

Firstbourne rumbled menacingly, lava dribbling from her teeth and smoke spurting from her nostrils. Oh, she'd seen that one's heart all right. She loved Wu and all, but she was _this_ close to eating him alive right now—

"I'll go with you," offered Wu. "I can explain everything. It can't hurt to try, can it?"

Firstbourne growled and shook her head violently. She was _not_ giving her baby to the Hunters.

"Firstbourne . . . " said Wu, his tone gently pleading. She growled again. If all they could offer her was advice to hand her baby to the dragon-killers, she was done here. Arching her neck, she leaned right over Wu and snorted sternly at Lloyd, ordering him to surrender Energy. When he hastily complied, Firstbourne scooped the hatchling back into her mouth and turned to leave.

"I wish you wouldn't," said Wu, pained. "The Hunters promised to live peacefully. Don't you believe that?"

Firstbourne hesitated, but didn't look back. How was she supposed to make him understand how _stupid_ that idea was? She had seen how much enjoyment they got out of using her children's bones as furniture. And she had seen how many of _them_ had been mauled, disfigured, and even killed when her children fought back. There was a literal river of bad blood here; they were _not_ about to heal her baby.

Then a sound of distant screams and police sirens rang out. Everyone's head snapped around. Firstbourne arced her head towards the noise too.

"Uh-oh . . . " said Zane, as the uproar continued.

"I think we just found our Kryptarium escapee," said Kai, wincing. "We'd . . . better get over there."

The ninja began to pull on their masks. Firstbourne looked back to the humans. Even as worked-up as she was, she still didn't want to leave them in the lurch if there was an emergency.

"We'll be all right," said Wu quietly. "Will you?"

Firstbourne huffed and looked away.

"Good luck, my friend," sighed Wu. "I hope you find someone who can help you. Come back if there's anything else we can do. All right?"

Casting the dragon a last worried look, he hurried after the ninja. She glowered after him for a moment, then spread her wings and took off for the First Realm.

Maybe she should have eaten him, she thought bitterly. He'd only made it worse—telling her there might be a cure, then setting it so impossibly out of her reach.

* * *

 **A/N: I'd be ready to believe that the writers' original plan was to have Jay eat something weird in the First Realm, but at the last moment they decided that was too edgy for a Y7 production. Would explain why it came out of nowhere and wore off at random. And seriously, if Skybound didn't break him, I don't think anything would.**

 **Also, it dawns on me that Muzzle is basically Mindroid from Rebooted. Short, speaks gibberish, enough attitude to fill three of him. :P**


	7. Do You Wanna Build A -

**Betcha thought I was gone for good, eh? Hoho, no such luck! We continue the parodification of beloved Christmas cartoons!**

* * *

The ninja zigzagged through Ninjago City's streets at a dash, heading towards the source of the noise. A few civilians were already fleeing in the opposite direction.

"Who is it?" called Nya. "Who's attacking?"

"It's Garmadon!"

Everyone slid to a violent halt.

"It's WHO?!"

Cole grabbed another panicked passerby.

"Who's attacking?!"

"It's Garmadon! He's got another Colossus, but this time it's made of snow! We're doomed!"

Cole released the guy, looking shell-shocked.

"Nobody at Kryptarium told us they'd lost track of _freaking Lord Garmadon?!_ "

"No wonder those guards wouldn't tell me anything!"

"I'm gonna _kill_ them—"

"This is why I keep making a case for honesty!" Even PIXAL was starting to lose her cool.

"Everyone calm down, please!" Wu caught up to the group, breathless. "We won't achieve anything by losing our heads. We need to go in with a plan."

The younger warriors turned to him with mild panic already swimming in their eyes. They'd seen what happened the last time Garmadon attacked. Ninjago City wasn't ready to handle that kind of apocalypse again. _They_ weren't ready to handle that kind of apocalypse again.

"How did he get another Colossus?" said Cole. "Lloyd, I thought you sapped all his power!"

"I _did!_ " Lloyd shook his head desperately. "I don't—I don't know how—"

"Well, you need to stay away from this fight until we figure out what's going on," said Kai.

"What?" Lloyd looked indignant. "I'm not sitting this one out. Guys, come on. I'm not scared of him. I'm totally over the whole thing, nothing's gonna throw me off, I swear."

"Okay, one, that is categorically not true," said Cole flatly. Before Lloyd could launch another protest, he held up one hand. "But! The bigger thing: you said it was your fighting Garmadon that gave him power, right? Something about 'it's the fight that fuels him'? So if you come with us, you might just give him more power."

"How do we know it's just me? It might happen if _anyone_ fights him!"

"Oh boy, in that case I'm with that other guy, we _are_ doomed—"

The argument was interrupted by a distant rumble and heavy snapping. It sounded like trees being violently felled.

"Oh mannn . . . " groaned Kai, wincing.

They realized they no longer had time to wait around. They took off at a run again, following the source of the noise.

Luckily, Garmadon wasn't within city limits yet. The ninja were already dashing through the very outskirts of the city when they started to see police cars lining up, facing outwards.

"He's over that way!" shouted an officer, pointing. "I think he's heading for the tree farm!"

"Great, thanks!" Cole waved. "You guys guard the city limits, we'll go out and start a fight."

They dashed towards a towering white figure they could already see in the distance. Sure enough, he was heading for a Christmas tree farm just north of the city. Business had been pretty poor for the farm this year, since most citizens couldn't afford proper trees, but now the farmer had waaaaaay bigger things to worry about. The snow Colossus was wading into the trees, which didn't even come up to its knees, and casually kicking great swathes of them to the ground.

"I can't _believe_ it," groaned Jay. "First Garmadon comes back, then his first move is to ruin _Christmas trees?_ That's like . . . level twenty Grinch stuff!"

"Hey, one good side to all this." Kai held up a fistful of fire, a grim smile in his voice. "Snow melts."

The ninja minus Lloyd headed for the tree farm. The green ninja himself stayed near the police lines, near enough to pulling out his hair. Why did the universe _always_ peg him as the one who couldn't join the fight? Where in the official guidebook did it say, "Green Ninja: Gets all the grief but never allowed to help his friends"? He was gonna have _words_ with the guidebook writers.

Meanwhile, the others came bounding into the farm, leaping over felled Christmas trees. The snow monster was noticeably smaller than the stone Colossus had been, but that still didn't make it _small_. It was just about to stomp its foot onto another patch of Christmas trees.

"Hey Marshmallow!" shouted Kai. "This way!"

The snow Colossus turned, puzzled at the sound. From its shoulder Garmadon cackled maniacally.

"Ah, just who I was hoping for. Crush them!"

The snowman shifted, turning so that its giant foot was instead poised over the ninja. Several of them froze or cringed inadvertantly, but Kai only launched a torrent of flame at the monster's _other_ leg. A giant chunk of its ankle melted, steaming, and the snow monster stumbled back with a scream. Its swinging foot just barely missed the ninja. Then it finally lost balance entirely and went crashing to the ground. More trees crunched underneath it, while everyone was bounced slightly into the air from the force of the earth shaking.

"Get it!" shouted Nya, and they all hurled themselves at the felled monster. It heaved itself up all at once, sending ninja flying every which way. Howling, it toppled to its feet, now with several trees impaled through it. That didn't seem to bother it as much as the ninja just existing, though.

"Owwww . . . " grumbled Jay, slowly picking himself up from amongst the branches of a tree. He'd been thrown into it so hard the trunk snapped. The lightning ninja shook his head dazedly, then paused to inhale deeply.

"Mmm. Pine!"

All at once he became aware of a shadow looming over him. With a yelp, he hurled himself out of the way just as the snow Colossus slammed down one giant fist. The tree was ground to splinters.

"Just melt it Kai, just melt it!" shouted Nya.

"I'm trying! Let me aim!"

"We have to knock it down again!"

Meanwhile, Lloyd was pacing among the police officers, watching in torment as the snow monster thrashed in the distance. This was the cruelest thing imaginable. Were his friends okay? Would they be crushed? Was their fighting only making Garmadon stronger? _How_ did he get his powers back?!

Lloyd tested his green energy nervously in one fist. Still working fine. He'd _seen_ his father's powers fail. How were they back? How were they back?

"Hey, you!" shouted a voice all of a sudden. "You're the Green Ninja, aren't you?"

Lloyd turned, startled. A small, weaselly-looking man was standing nearby, glaring at him.

"I-I'm sorry," stammered Lloyd. "Who are . . . ?"

"I want my money!" bellowed the small man.

Lloyd blinked, momentarily distracted from the crashing and roaring in the distance.

"I'm sorry, have we met? I don't think I . . . "

"Not from _you,_ " growled the man. "From HIM!"

He stabbed a finger towards the tree farm, where the Colossus was again struggling up from the ground. Lloyd bit his lip as he saw that it was collecting more snow every time it fell. Couldn't his friends see that? They needed to stop knocking it down, that was only making it stronger—How could he get over there and tell them that, how—

"Are you listening, ya little brat?" demanded the small man shrilly. Lloyd started, only half-changing his focus. He wasn't sure which one of his friends owed money to this slightly sketchy-looking guy, but couldn't he see that this was _really_ not the time to bring it up?

The guy, seeing that he was being ignored, began to pace and stamp similarly to Lloyd, muttering.

"Oh, this is just _dandy_. Protector of the city and he won't stick up for a guy's rights! I'll never get my money now! Jerks are gonna send him back to jail, and poor old Raciferious can eat the costs of his old hat, eh?! Pahhhh. You try to make an honest living—"

"Hold on, _what?_ " Lloyd happened to catch the right combination of words. "Jail? Wait, who owes you money?"

"The tall dark idiot riding on the snowman!" snapped Raciferious, if that was his actual name. Lloyd stared between him and the snowman for a moment.

"My da—I mean, _Garmadon?_ "

"Yes, dammit!" Raciferious was being eaten alive by impatience. "He bought a top hat out of my antique shop just this morning, and just now I look and I see he paid me with dud bills! I want my pay!"

"He bought a . . . top hat?" Lloyd was so bewildered that he actually forgot to watch the battle.

"That he did," said the shop owner sulkily. "Made of the finest silk and everything. He kept jabbering some drivel about needing it to be magic, so . . . uh . . . " A shifty expression crossed his face. "Well, I didn't disillusion him." He snorted at Lloyd's dry look and jabbed a thumb towards the ongoing battle. "You can't say I lied to him, sonny. Looks like it works. Wouldn't have guessed it myself, but I _do_ sell some interesting things—"

"Hold on, WHAT?" Lloyd was on the road towards developing a catchphrase.

"Well, what do you think? That's it right on the snow critter's head. And I either want my money, or I want my damned hat back!"

Lloyd stared yet again between Raciferious and the snowman. Then he took off full-speed for the tree farm.

"That's more like it, kid! Bring me back my hat!" Raciferious shouted after him.

* * *

The ninja were getting their tails handed to them. Everyone was panting, stumbling, bruised and battered, covered in snow and pine sap. Kai was flopped over in a snowdrift heaving for breath. He'd overdone it with the flamethrowing and could now summon little more than a puff of smoke.

"My turn!" shouted Cole. He charged up his Earth Punch and hurled himself at the snow monster's incoming fist. It worked—maybe a little too well. He pretty much just punched a large hole into the snow monster's fist and sank into it. The snow monster screeched in rage and flapped its fist, finally shaking Cole loose and knocking him into a tree.

"Geez . . . " Cole stirred, groaning. "Why do they call them pine trees, they oughta call 'em pain trees . . . "

"You—leave—the bad jokes—to me!" scolded Jay wearily, trying to catch his breath even as he swung his nunchuks for another try.

"I don't know if I'm making it better or worse!" wailed Nya. Her water was either melting the snow or freezing and turning it to iron-clad ice, seemingly at random. Zane was struggling and failing to freeze the monster's feet to the ground. PIXAL hadn't had time to summon her Samurai X suit, and was basically just carving chunks out of the monster's heels with a katana now and then. Garmadon was just vastly enjoying all of this.

"Guys, guys, GUYS!" A familiar shout rang out nearby. Everyone's head snapped around.

"Lloyd! What are you doing here?! Get out!"

"No guys, listen, listen! He's not using his powers! It's the hat! That top hat!" Lloyd, still gasping from his run to the farm, pointed way up to the snow monster's head. Sure enough, a comparatively tiny top hat was perched snugly atop it.

"Are you KIDDING me?" screeched Jay.

"Look, I'm not saying I believe it either!" Lloyd shouted above the monster's continued roaring. "But this sketchy antique shop owner just told me he sold a silk top hat to my dad, and he was looking for a magic one! He doesn't have his powers back after all, I can fight!"

"Lloyd, are you _serious_ —"

But Lloyd was already plunging into the fray. Dodging perilously around the snow monster's stomping feet, he dropped into a slide and hurled a globe of green energy into the creature's face. It screamed, and several of the ninja yelped in horror as its face sizzled and melted away.

"You stay out of this, son! I'll crush you a second time!" howled Garmadon. "Trample him!"

The snow monster ignored him, though; it was busy clawing at its face. Lloyd hurled himself to a slightly safer distance, rolling behind a pile of felled trees for shelter.

"See, that didn't make him stronger!" he shouted to the others. "It really is the hat! Aim for the hat!"

"I don't believe it," said Zane blankly.

"Hey, like a video game boss?" Kai sat up, grinning. "Woo hoo! It's been way too long since I got to play a video game!"

Most of the ninja came bounding out of their hiding places, eager to try this new tactic. Jay looked after them in horrified dismay.

"Are you all _serious?_ Frosty the Snowman lives among us and the first thing we're gonna do is MURDER him?!" He cringed as one of the giant fists came down again, barely missing Kai and PIXAL. "Ohhhhkay. Guess we've gotta murder him!"

He scrambled after the others.

It had gotten harder to knock the snow Colossus down by now—it had figured out that trick. It was also foaming mad now, and probably partially blind. It flailed, stamped, and kicked indiscriminately, never holding still long enough for anyone to take a shot at its feet.

"We'll have to climb it!" shouted Lloyd. "I'll go! The rest of you distract it!"

He waited for one of the giant fists to swing near him, then leaped. Digging his hands and feet into the packed snow of the creature's wrist, he clung for dear life. It was busily aiming at Kai now; when its fist slammed down into the ground, Lloyd nearly fell off.

"Kai, look out!"

"Hey big guy, down _here!_ " Cole kicked at the snow monster's foot to distract it. As it turned its head, growling, Lloyd leaped up and ran along its arm, tripping as the snow shifted and gave beneath him. Soon the snow monster stood erect again, and he had to scrabble the last few feet to reach the curve of its shoulder.

Garmadon was on its other shoulder. He leaned over to look at Lloyd around its head, glowering.

Lloyd glared back. Then he gasped as he realized one of the snowman's hands was coming towards him, ready to swat. Gritting his teeth, he hurled another mesh of green energy at the incoming hand, then used the bought time to leap at the side of the creature's head.

The others ran circles down below, trying to irritate the snow monster enough to make it ignore the tiny figure scrabbling for purchase by its ear. It was really getting whipped into a frenzy now, turning around and around, stumbling and flailing.

Lloyd finally managed to struggle his way onto the top of the monster's head. Cresting the scalp, he sucked in a relieved breath—then groaned. Garmadon was already standing in his path, all four arms folded. The top hat was just beyond him, just out of reach.

"I'm not here to play games, Dad," said Lloyd. "You're going straight back to Kryptarium."

"You haven't won yet," Garmadon growled.

Lloyd set his jaw. He _could_ just blast Garmadon straight out of here with a few energy bursts, but . . . well, even with _everything_ that had happened so far, he was still a bleeding-heart to the finish. And he felt strangely calm right now; no urge to fight, no anger at all. Cole had been wrong when he said Lloyd hadn't gotten past it.

"Just step aside, okay?" he said, nearly drowned out by the monster's indignant roaring. "I don't wanna have to hurt you."

"But you wouldn't," Garmadon smirked. "All I have to do is stand here. You wouldn't have the heart to harm your _father,_ now . . . would you?"

Lloyd hesitated, seemingly torn. Then he lunged for the hat. Garmadon shifted to block his path. Lloyd dodged, feinted, failed—then finally gave a frustrated yell and hurled a globe of green light. Garmadon casually dodged, snorting.

"You missed."

"Ahh . . . " Lloyd shrugged, pulling off his hood with a smile. "I wasn't aiming for you."

Garmadon started, whirling. He was just in time to see the top hat, still sparking with green energy, whisking away on a stray breeze.

The snow monster went utterly still. In the sudden silence, the whistling of the breeze seemed impossibly loud.

Then the snowman began to crumble. The ninja didn't know, of course, but Garmadon had built the thing lying down. No _way_ could something that size and shape support its own weight without a magic hat. Now the whole monstrosity was giving way, and a veritable avalanche of snow was just showering down from the sky, shedding broken trees along with it.

"Run for cover!" yelled Kai. Jay and Zane had been standing on either of the monster's fists when the hat came loose, and now they suddenly found they had nothing left to stand on. They both went sprawling into the snow, luckily unharmed.

Finally the rumbling and shaking of the ground stopped, and the mound of crumbled snow settled. The top of it heaved, then exploded with a burst of green light. Lloyd emerged, panting, and scowled down at Garmadon, who had popped out just below.

"Like I said. Straight back to Kryptarium."

He started and looked up at a sudden storm of cheering nearby. Ninjago's police force must have followed him closer to the fight. Now they were all swarming in amongst the wreckage of the tree farm, ready to drag Garmadon right back to jail.

"Good work, everyone!" called the commissioner, waving jauntily. "Just in time for Christmas!"

Lloyd waved back and slid down the side of the snow mound, hurrying to check if the others were okay. They emerged from various snowdrifts and hidey-holes, battered but smiling.

"I can't believe it." Cole picked up the top hat from the ground. "An actual magic Frosty hat!"

Promptly Raciferious came scurrying onto the scene. Without so much as a thank-you, he snatched the hat from Cole's hands and went scurrying away.

" _Hey_ —" yelped Cole.

"Relax Cole, it's his." Lloyd dusted snow from his gi wearily. "He's the one my dad bought the hat from. With counterfeit money."

"Do you think we should let some random shop owner run around with something that powerful?" said Kai uneasily.

"Well . . . He's already seen what we can do to snowmen." Lloyd chuckled wearily, wiping his forehead, and looked around at the others. "Hey. Great work, everyone! We really cleaned up fast."

"At least it's over," said Nya, giving him an equally weary smile. The others nodded or offered tired agreements. Lloyd looked a little puzzled at their lack of enthusiasm.

"Hey, cheer up, guys! We won. Now we can finally focus on Christmas again!"

He missed the others' less-than-thrilled expressions.

"I'll sort things out with Warden Noble and the police, you guys can go back to headquarters. I'll catch up! Say, since we're here, maybe there's a tree that's still in good shape—"

"Can we not?" interrupted Jay plaintively. He was still sprawled on his back in the snow. Lloyd paused.

"Can we not . . . what?"

"Not do this." Jay gingerly sat up, fixing Lloyd with an exhausted, pleading look. "Just . . . not do Christmas."

"Not do **—** " Lloyd seemed utterly caught off guard. He scrabbled for a moment, then looked around at the others, as if waiting for someone else to tell Jay he was crazy. But everyone was looking at Lloyd instead. Their tired faces spoke louder than words: they were on Jay's side.

"Please?" said Jay. It was a shame he wasn't a puppy, he would have made an excellent SPCA ad right now.

"I-I **—** " Lloyd's hands drifted subconsciously to rake through his hair. "What . . . what do you mean? Why would you not want to have Christmas?"

"We're tired, Lloyd," said Cole. "We've been through a lot."

"And you've been through a lot too," added Kai. "Do you honestly not want a break?"

"But we _are_ on break," said Lloyd. "Okay, yeah, so there was Firstbourne, and a giant evil snowman just now, but nothing bad was happening before that! We were just decorating, and cooking, and working at the mall **—** that's easy stuff. Fun stuff."

"Currently, it just feels like a large amount of work," said Zane flatly.

Lloyd looked scandalized again, but the others only nodded in guilty agreement.

"Everyone's still freaked out about . . . everything, basically." Jay waved his hands. "We're barely in shape to live _normally_. Decorating and stuff doesn't feel like fun. It just feels like a ton of chores and responsibilities. Wayyyyy too many responsibilities."

"Being a ninja is _about_ responsibilities!" Lloyd's voice rose a little. "What about all the other people in Ninjago? What are they going to think if they see that we just _gave up_ on Christmas? What kind of message is that going to send?"

"Honestly, not a bad one," said Nya. "The people are probably tired too. They just escaped the rule of an evil warlord. They just rebuilt their homes, they're still not sure if they can find enough _food_ , sometimes. And now they're seeing all this pressure to be jolly and normal and act like nothing bad ever happened. It's probably stressing them out. There's probably families trying to decide if they should buy food or decorations, because they can't have both. Maybe it would be good for them to see we're not stretching past our limits."

"Our _limits_ **—** " began Lloyd, but stopped. He looked around at everyone again. Definitely nobody on his side. Ouch.

For a while you could see him warring with himself. For a second it seemed he was going to try arguing more—or maybe pull the Master title and flat-out _order_ them to have Christmas—or maybe regress a decade and have a fit. He did none of those things, though. Finally he just sighed, pulling his ninja hood back on.

"Okay then," he said. "If that's what you want. Christmas is canceled."

"Lloyd **—** "

"I'll wrap things up with the warden." Lloyd was already turning away. "See you back at the temple."

He left without another glance. The others exchanged pained looks, depressed at their Pyrrhic victory.

"I guess somebody better talk to him," mumbled Kai.

"Great, thanks for volunteering," said Cole at once.

"What?! Hold _on_ a second **—** "

"Yeah, go for it, Kai!" said Jay brightly. Kai didn't even bother with Zane **—** you couldn't trust that Nindroid for anything these days **—** but looked indignantly to Nya. She shrugged.

"I spent weeks trying to screw the kid's head on straight while you guys were gone. It's your turn."

"And I am not well-versed in soothing human conversation," said PIXAL, contentedly. Kai groaned.

"Why does it always hafta be me?"

"Because that's what you get for dragging his tiny bratty tail out of a volcano, once upon a time," said Jay, already trying to steer Kai in Lloyd's general direction. "No good deed goes unpunished."

* * *

Faith was tossing on her sleeping mat, running mental calculations over and over. How long could the Hunters last on this much food? Supposing some of it rotted, or was stolen by vermin? Or supposing the weather changed things, and their usual starvation rations should actually be higher? Maybe it was just in her head, but she felt hungrier in this cold **—**

She was shaken from her thoughts by a soft, urgent tapping on the window.

"Chief," came Jet Jack's hoarse whisper. "Hurry, let us in!"

Faith rolled to her feet and opened the door. Jet Jack came darting in, hauling Chew Toy by the arm. She motioned urgently for silence and no light.

"What's happening?" whispered Faith.

"The Dragon Mother is circling the village." Jet Jack jerked her head towards the window. "Chew Toy saw her."

"Circling?" Faith felt her hackles rising already.

"She's three-quarters of a mile out, pacin' the perimeter," agreed Chew Toy, bobbing his head. "Lookin' our way all the while."

"Look, there!" Jet Jack pointed out the window. Faith stepped over and peered out into the moonlit night, searching the silvery expanse of sand beyond the village. She was just in time to see a massive reptilian form crest a dune, silhouetted darkly against the moon. The shadowy head lifted to stare at the village, flashing a pair of piercing amber eyes **—**

 **—** Faith felt her blood turn to ice. It was as if Firstbourne could see her, as if she had been specifically searching for _her_ ; as if they had locked gazes even at this distance. She turned away from the window as the reptilian form padded onwards. The circling continued.

"What is she doing?" whispered Jet Jack. "Why?"

Faith shook her head silently. The air was heavy with dread.

"Whadda we do?" asked Chew Toy, hopping from foot to foot. "Should we get ready for'n attack?"

"We . . . promised the First Spinjitzu Master's son we would not attack the dragons," said Faith slowly. "But we have no choice but to defend ourselves if they attack first."

She looked at Jet Jack and Chew Toy, both watching her, waiting for her word.

"Say nothing to the children," she said at last. "And warn the adults to hold their fire till I say so. But . . . tell them to have their weapons ready."

Jet Jack and Chew Toy nodded silently.

"We'll assemble when it's light," said Faith. "Go back to bed. I'll stay up and **—** "

A wavering, keening roar suddenly drifted through the night. Everyone froze as it stretched on and on, haunting, anguished. It was strange how it got to them. They had all heard dragons howling in full battle rage, screaming in agony as they burned alive **—** objectively, this sound was nothing in comparison. But there was something inexplicably unsettling about it. Maybe because it was a dragon out of their control; a dragon so powerful they knew they never _could_ control it. At any moment it could burst into their village and destroy them all.

Or maybe it was something else. Either way, Faith heard Jet Jack's breath catch.

Finally the cry ended. They all stood still for a while. Nobody really felt like talking anymore.

"We'll see what's happening in the morning," said Faith at last. "I'll keep watch. Try to get some sleep."

Chew Toy and Jet Jack headed wordlessly for the door. Just before Jet Jack stepped out, she turned to flick her metal-banded gaze back at Faith, just for the briefest moment.

"Don't be afraid," said Faith quietly.

Jet Jack stiffened, her chin rising in defiance.

"Have you ever seen me be afraid of anything?" She searched for words. "But I guess you were right. We can't afford to celebrate this 'Christmas.' Look what happens if we even _think_ of letting down our guard."

Faith shrugged, oddly dissatisfied about being right. After a moment she laid a hand on Jet Jack's shoulder and squeezed reassuringly.

"We'll be all right. Get some sleep."

And it was a stupid gesture, she reflected, as she leaned on the windowsill watching the night. Trying to be reassuring at a time like this was just telling flat-out lies. It made better sense for everyone to understand the bleakness of the situation, not feel better about it. And yet, empty promise or not **—** somehow Jet Jack's startled, grateful smile made it feel like the right thing to do.

Those weak-minded ninja had screwed her up good.


	8. Will Find it Hard to Sleep Tonight

**Onwards, with the fervent defense of scroogery! Should have another chapter up tomorrow, too.**

* * *

Lloyd spent longer than necessary with the warden. Then he just vanished before Kai could talk to him. Dismayed, but aware of his duties as Best Older Brother Ever, Kai spent a while searching the city for him. No dice.

The looter activity picked up something fierce as evening approached—the mini-Garmadon-attack had stirred them up again. The ninja were kept busy addressing flare-ups across the city, in pairs or trios.

Lloyd cropped up at random. Kai and Jay were tussling with a few thugs when Lloyd just dropped into the middle of the brawl and helped them floor the opposition. As soon as the thugs were tied up he pulled away.

"Hey, wait—" called Jay, but Lloyd was already skittering off across the rooftops.

"Awww, we made him _mad_ ," said Jay woefully, looking after him.

Lloyd helped out with a few other arrests that night, but nobody held him down long enough to talk. Finally two AM rolled around, and even Kai was so exhausted that he left any remaining action to the police force.

As he stumbled into the front hall of their headquarters, he ran across Lloyd—finally at rest, just beginning to shed his hat and scarf. He must have just gotten home too.

Lloyd hadn't turned around when he heard Kai come in. He went on peeling off his soaking, snow-caked jacket. Kai said nothing, also removing his winter gear. He thought this might go better if he let Lloyd start the conversation.

The uncomfortable silence stretched on for quite a while, but Lloyd finally did speak.

"What happened to 'ninja never quit'?" he asked the coatrack. Despite everything Kai almost smiled. He knew that petulant tone; _there_ was his little brother. Finally.

"We're not quitting," he said, putting aside his scarf. "We're choosing to have a more relaxed Christmas. It's only quitting if you're fighting for something that really matters."

"Christmas doesn't matter?" Lloyd finally turned his way, indignant.

"I mean, it _does_ ," said Kai, sighing. "But not the decorations. Not the food, or celebrating, or anything. What matters is **—** you know. The sappy stuff they put in the Christmas specials. Being together, and giving, and bleh." He chuckled, but Lloyd didn't even smile, so he sighed and sobered up again. "Come onnnn, kiddo. I thought you were the one who always wanted us to be together and stuff. But now you'd rather have fancy decorations than hang out with us?"

"I-it's not like that!" sputtered Lloyd. "That's not what I meant."

Kai raised his eyebrows, silently prompting him to continue.

"I just . . . Ugh. I wanted this Christmas to be _normal_ ," said Lloyd, staring down at his snow-covered boots. "I know you're all tired. I know celebrating is a lot of work. I get it. But if we don't celebrate, then it's like **—** it's like **—** " He gulped "It feels like the bad guys _won_. They got what they wanted. They broke us so much we can't even be happy anymore."

Kai's eyes softened in sympathy. He got an inkling that Lloyd had a specific bad guy in mind.

"It's not about _her_ ," said Lloyd, as if reading his mind. "It's about **—** about all of it. You guys **—** you came back from the First Realm different. Everyone gets so tense over nothing now. You guys just randomly start staring into space sometimes. And don't think I don't know how many nightmares everyone's having." He eyed Kai balefully, as if Kai had already suggested such a thing.

"You're doing all that stuff too," said Kai.

"I _know_. We all are. We're a _mess_ ," said Lloyd. "And I don't know how to fix it. I **—** "

He fell silent, his eyes going dark. Kai looked away, understanding. Lloyd was terrified there _was_ no way to fix it.

They all were.

After a moment Lloyd stirred and rubbed his face tiredly.

"I just thought if we had a normal Christmas, it'd . . . I don't know, it'd help somehow. Like we could all snap out of it. Or at least just forget and be happy, just for a little while." He sighed, slumping. "I'm sorry I pushed you guys into all this. I didn't know what else to do."

"Relaaaax," said Kai. "Listen, squirt. You were trying to help. We appreciate it, promise. But . . . come on, be honest. You're tired too, aren't you? Is this helping?"

"It hasn't yet," said Lloyd, his voice small.

"I don't think it's gonna," said Kai, as gently as he could. "You're right, Lloyd. We're all a mess. We're tired and grouchy and trying to get over a lot of lousy memories. We're not having fun. If we're running around losing our minds, forcing ourselves to do Christmas stuff we're not enjoying, because we're scared that skipping anything is like losing to the bad guys . . . They've kind of already won, haven't they?"

Lloyd flinched.

"I don't know. Maybe they did break us," said Kai, digging his hands into his pockets and studying the floor. "But I don't think pretending we're okay is gonna fix that. And I mean . . . it doesn't really matter, does it? Maybe we're not all okay, but at least we still win. We still fight. We're _always_ still tough when it matters."

"I know," said Lloyd quietly.

"But this?" Kai shook his head. "C'mon. This is not one of the things that matters. Skipping Christmas isn't losing to anyone. We can rest this one year. Next year we'll do better."

Wrong thing to say. Wronnnnnng thing to say. Lloyd didn't react overtly, but his pupils dilated as if someone had just pulled a gun on him. Kai froze too.

For a moment there was a breathless silence. Lloyd's eyes got blanker and blanker. Kai stood with his hands still in his pockets, halfway through the motion of pulling them out.

"There's something else, isn't there," he said at last.

Lloyd went back to staring at his feet.

"So that's what this is all about." Kai's voice had gone hollow. "That's what this was about all along. You know something we don't. You think there won't _be_ a next year."

Lloyd squeezed his eyes shut.

"What is it, Lloyd?" said Kai. "What's going to happen?"

No reply. You could hear the clock ticking in the next room. A freezing mist seemed to whirl in through the keyhole, washing over the two teenagers motionless in the hall. Kai felt it seep into his bones, clawing down into his stomach, sinking little sadistic claws into his guts. Lloyd had faced so much and lived. He wouldn't be afraid this was their last Christmas for nothing.

"Lloyd . . . "

"I didn't want you to worry." Lloyd's voice was terse now; detached. "There's no point dragging you into it too early. Freaking out won't help anyone."

"I kinda would've liked to know!" said Kai, a little heated. "You know, instead of some disaster just falling out of the sky with no warning? Trust me, none of us enjoys that kind of surprise—"

"I was going to tell you, honest!" said Lloyd, flinching again. "Just—after Christmas. I didn't want to ruin that. You guys have been through enough, you don't need more problems. You don't need to spend your whole Christmas worrying about something you can't control!"

"What I _need_ —" began Kai sharply, then broke off. He met Lloyd's tired, empty eyes for a moment. He looked so much older than he had just a few months ago. It had taken maybe two months for him to grow up ten years. Now was not the time to chew him out for trying to help.

At last Kai sighed, raking a hand through his hair.

"I'm tired," he said. He didn't mean the lack of sleep.

"Me too," whispered Lloyd. He didn't either.

There was a bleak silence. They both knew Ninjago's endless apocalypse machine didn't care how tired you were. Never had, never would.

"Tell you what, I know what we _both_ need," said Kai, shedding his jacket with dogged resignation. "Some of that microwaved eggnog. With gross spices in it."

"Wouldn't say no to that," admitted Lloyd, accepting the peace offering.

"Heck. I think by now I'd drink microwaved _eggs_ , as long as they were warm," said Kai, leading the way to the kitchen. "The cold out there is—Oh."

Behind him Lloyd gave a muffled choke of surprise, taking in the avalanches of popcorn still filling the kitchen.

"Riiiiiiiight." Kai rubbed his face, mentally scolding the others for just going to bed without cleaning up even though he knew he would have done the same himself. "Forgot about that."

"Well . . . " Lloyd waded up to the kitchen island and dug around till he found a large bowl. Scooping up a heaping mound of popcorn, he held it up to Kai.

"Dinner. Salt or butter?"

Kai cocked his head, then grinned.

"Hey, we're all gonna die. Let's do both."

* * *

Firstbourne was ready to lose her mind. Energy only got worse. She didn't even react to her surroundings anymore, just lay there with her eyes closed, curled up oddly as if she had been stabbed. Firstbourne wondered if she was in pain.

She had given up circling the Hunters hours ago, nothing was coming out of that. She had more than entertained the idea of simply charging in and tearing the place apart until she found the healing plant, but that was hopeless. She was a dragon, she knew zero about vegetation. She wouldn't know it if she saw it, she had no clue if it needed special preparation, and she probably wouldn't be able to prepare it anyway.

The cold air in the cave pulsed with desperation. The younger dragons were slowly suffocating under it. Fire was pacing and snarling outside, just as restless as Firstbourne. Wind was sitting and staring silently at Energy's shivering form. She hadn't moved for hours. Ice, Earth, and Lightning were huddled up together in the far corner of the cave, miserable.

The dragon mother bent over her limp hatchling again, nudging and licking her perfunctorily. She breathed a gentle pulse of green energy into the baby, even though she knew it wouldn't do any good. The first few times Energy had almost become lively for a few minutes; by now she only shook her head dazedly, looking up at Firstbourne with hooded eyes.

Firstbourne paced. Smoke puffed rhythmically from her nostrils. She had already gone over every option, shuttled back and forth between impossible schemes and resigned despair. Sometimes she could almost convince herself she didn't care. She had lost so many children, what was one more? She'd watched worse deaths than this.

But she never held that thought very long. She would have saved every one of those dragons if she could have. She had already promised herself she would never lose another. This was supposed to be a fresh start, if she lost this one too—

Sometimes she was pointlessly, unfairly angry with Energy for being sick. Sometimes she wandered through endless "what if's" and "if only's," wondering if this would have happened if Energy didn't hatch too early, if she had a different element, if Firstbourne had been there when she broke out.

But always the thought of a cure pounded in the back of her skull. There was something that might save Energy's life. It was out there. Right nearby. How could she just let it slip away? How could she sit here and watch her baby die, knowing there was something she could have done?

She drifted to the mouth of the cave and stared in the direction of the Hunter village, breathing shallowly. Right there with them. But they wouldn't give it. They'd never. But then . . . she hadn't asked . . . How would she know if she never asked? What if they would have said yes? What if she was throwing that chance away?

But then she thought of Ultra. Of Wind and Fire and Earth in chains. Of Shadow and Amber and her first Ice child, dead by the Hunters' fire and spears. Seeking help from the Hunters would mean closing her eyes to all her children's suffering. It would be an insult to the ones who died.

But if she stood aside and let Energy die too, how did that fix anything?

But it was pointless, why was she even entertaining these thoughts, the Hunters only killed. It was idiotic to expect them to do anything else.

But Wu had promised . . .

But what did Wu know?

Energy was going to _die_. Firstbourne was going to stand there and watch her hatchling take her final breath. She was going to do it _knowing_ she hadn't tried everything. She had let a possibility slip away.

What possibility? She could never ask.

She would never stop wondering what would have happened if she'd asked.

Energy was going to _die._

The lava pits around her hissed and began to boil over, while the lightning dancing off the columns of rock turned into a blazing pillar of electricity. Firstbourne leaned into the waves of searing heat and howled her agony into the night beyond.

Inside the cave, the younger dragons shivered and huddled closer to each other. Firstbourne was at war with the entire universe tonight; heaven help anyone who got in the way.

* * *

"Sooooo." Kai shoveled down a handful of popcorn, clearly tasting nothing. "Last Christmas, huh?"

"I don't know," mumbled Lloyd. They were on the living room sofa, with a half-dead fire in the fireplace, eating poorly-salted popcorn in the dark because they had all given up caring what counted as weird long ago.

"So what do we do?" said Kai.

"Nothing, I guess," said Lloyd. "All we can do is wait."

"Well, that's kinda sucky . . . "

"I know," said Lloyd. "That's why I didn't want you guys to know just yet. Now you're just gonna spend your whole Christmas worrying about something you can't control. You'll have plenty of time to worry once Christmas is over."

Kai pried at a popcorn husk stuck between his teeth, looking pensive.

"Do you think about it a lot?" he said at last.

"Ah . . . Maybe . . . " mumbled Lloyd, sliding down on the sofa and avoiding Kai's eyes.

"So that's why you were trying to get so much done, huh?" said Kai, eyeing him sympathetically. "Distract yourself?"

"No, that wasn't it," said Lloyd at once. "It—it doesn't really work for distracting anyway. I just keep thinking, 'oh, maybe it's the last time we get to do this, we have to make it count,' and that—" He broke off, shaking his head. "It—it can make you a little crazy, I guess. But I figured you guys . . . you know, you at least deserved a good Christmas, after everything that's happened. And before any _other_ stuff starts happening."

"Huh." Kai twiddled a piece of popcorn between his fingers. After a moment he eyed Lloyd askance, sizing him up. "You've . . . never even had a normal Christmas at all, have you?"

"Uh—" Lloyd blinked, caught off-guard.

"I mean, probably not when you were a kid," said Kai. "And then after you joined us, I'm thinking back, there was always _something_ going on around Christmastime—"

"No, that doesn't matter," interrupted Lloyd. "That's just how it is. It's how our lives work, there's always something. We've just gotta work around it, it's okay."

"Ugh," Kai shook his head. "I think you kinda deserve at least one normal Christmas in your lifespan, maybe we should—"

" _No_ ," said Lloyd firmly. "No, you were right the first time. What you guys need is a rest. You should get to do whatever will actually make you happy, not—not just whatever people think you're supposed to be happy about. I can't force us to have a normal Christmas, and I shouldn't have tried."

Kai said nothing, watching Lloyd with an unreadable expression.

"All we can do right now is make the best of it," said Lloyd resolutely. "Try not to think about it, okay? Get some rest. Get some decent sleep for a change. Spend some time with Skylor or something. Whatever works for you."

"Now you're really starting to scare me," said Kai. "What is this, apocalypse prep? Last meal on death row?"

"Don't _worry_ about that." Lloyd shook his head vehemently. "It's gonna be okay. We've lived through a lot, we'll live through this too. We'll face it when we get to it. We're gonna be okay."

Kai kept studying him for a moment. Who was this, and the frick had he done with Kai's baby brother? Last time Kai checked, it was usually _his_ job to reassure Lloyd, not the other way around.

Kai was an old hand at this himself, though. He'd spent enough of his life promising that everything was going to be okay—to Nya, to Lloyd, to the rest of his brothers. He more than knew how it felt. You could be two inches from a nervous breakdown, feeling your insides crumbling into questionably sane rubble, because you had _no freaking clue_ what was going to happen, and you knew perfectly well it might _not_ be okay, there was no way you could force it to be okay, you were up against something so much bigger than yourself—

—But you still set your teeth and looked your loved ones in the eye and told them it would be fine. Because if anyone ever admitted it might not be fine, then what was left? Lying down and giving up? You had to lie to yourself to survive this job. To yourself and to everyone else.

"Yeah," said Kai at last. "Yeah, it's gonna be okay."

"Gonna be fine," said Lloyd doggedly. "Everything's going to be fine."

"Sure. Nothing to freak out about."

They both trailed off. Lloyd leaned his head against the back of the sofa, frowning at the ceiling as if he expected it to disagree at any moment. After a moment he drew in a hissing breath and put his hands over his face.

"Lloyd? . . . "

"'m fine. Give me a minute."

"Everything's gonna be okay."

"I know."

They didn't say anything after that. Despite the heat radiating from the fireplace, the room seemed cold.


	9. In Need of a 39-and-a-Half Foot Pole

**Wu: *recruits literal children, many of them with painful pasts, to battle murderous evil forces and their own family members***

 **Kids: *are now a trainwreck***

 **Wu: *surprised Pikachu face***

* * *

At dawn the next morning, Faith was still staring out the window. Her eyes were kept open by sheer force of will, but the connection between her retina and her brain had gone pretty sluggish. She stared for a full five seconds at the approaching smudge in the distance before she realized something was happening.

She fumbled for her spyglass, forcing herself to look even as she dreaded what she'd see. Everything inside her went tense and hard. Dragons. All of them. Five massive forms, and Firstbourne pacing in front, leading them towards the village.

They were all about to die.

Faith lowered the spyglass, gripping the windowsill to steady herself. She couldn't afford to panic. There was no conceivable reason why the full complement of dragons would _peacefully_ approach their village—or at least, she couldn't think of any. But maybe there was something she hadn't thought of? After all, if they were going to attack, why would they wait for daylight? Why would they approach by ground? Why would they come so slowly, in plain sight?

Iron Baron would have shot first and asked questions later. Faith decided to gamble on the chance, even the _tiniest_ chance, that the dragons weren't coming to rip them all to shreds. However remote that chance might seem. However absurd. They had promised Wu they would not be the first to attack.

And besides, she thought, with a bark of despairing laughter. If the dragons planned to kill them, shooting first would do nothing to save their lives. Maybe buy them an extra five minutes, tops.

The dragons were closer now. The other villagers must be noticing them now, even without spyglasses. Time to start leading.

Taking a deep breath, Faith stepped outside.

"Hunters!" she bellowed.

The Hunters assembled like they'd all been hiding just around the corner, waiting for her to call. Jet Jack and Chew Toy had gotten the warning out: everyone was carrying weapons. Gaunt, grim faces and sleepless eyes met Faith's gaze everywhere she turned. She knew they must have already hidden all their children away somewhere—anywhere they thought they might survive.

For a moment Faith scanned the massed faces, all waiting for her word. Patiently. Trustingly. They _trusted_ her. Jet Jack was in front, all her baiting and snarking put aside, standing like she was ready to follow anywhere.

Faith sucked in yet another breath.

"We'll meet them outside the village wall!" she shouted, making sure everyone could hear. "I cannot stress enough the importance of NOT firing the first shot. We are—"

An angry babble rose from the crowd.

"Not defend ourselves?!"

"What next, should we stand still and let them broil us?"

"March out and throw ourselves into their jaws?!"

The shouts bordered on the hysterical. The Hunters were furious with the lust to live—to at least feel like they'd _fought_ to live. Faith's own resolve faltered; she was a warrior herself. She set her teeth and raised her voice again.

"We defend ourselves! But only if they attack first."

"Why wait?!"

"Because we don't know they're coming to fight!" barked Faith. She struggled to remain the unshakable leader. She had to look like she was in control, like she deserved their trust.

"She's right," cut in Jet Jack. "Look, they're not charging, they're plodding. If they wanted to attack, they would already be in here ripping the roofs off our homes! You want to talk about throwing yourself into dragons' jaws? How about rushing out to anger dragons who _might_ be coming here peacefully?"

A thousand crimson curses, Jet Jack. Every sassy comment, every thinly-veiled insult, every time Faith had wanted to pull out her own hair or wring Jet Jack's neck—all forgiven, right in this moment.

The Hunters mumbled uneasily, exchanging glances.

"Again!" said Faith. "I'm not saying we lie down and take it. I'm only saying we wait for them to start it. Once they attack, I will be first in line to carve a second sword out of Firstbourne's bones!"

Muffled cheers, snarls of appreciation. Energy pulsed through the Hunters as they regained shreds of desperate hope—hope they would live to see tomorrow. Empty, perhaps, but necessary in this moment.

Faith led them silently to the outskirts of the town. She had no idea if the Hunters would listen to her. Did they trust her enough to rein in their bloodlust and panicked battle frenzy? Would they wait for the dragons to attack first?

The dragons were already nearby. Equally silent, the reptilian phalanx stopped, facing the Hunters.

The two sides stared at each other, motionless. Breaths on both sides were measured, deliberate. Heads arched back. Eyes roved over the enemy. Minds flew back over decades of hating each other, maiming each other, killing each other, _eating_ each other.

A passing breeze blew through the Hunters' spears, sounding like a muffled scream of tension.

Firstbourne's own resolve was faltering, like Faith's before her. She looked over these silent figures and felt nothing but white-hot contempt clawing up from her innards. And as she looked over their hearts, she saw nothing but waves of burning red, crackles of magenta—hate, hate, fear, hate, down to the last one of them. And into this seething mass of hatred she was supposed to deliver her baby?

She felt little Energy quiver against her tongue. Feeble, barely moving. Dying. She was going to die either way, wasn't she? But to witness her being ripped to pieces at the hands of these monsters . . .

. . . If she didn't move now, she never would. Even as her heart broke, she lowered her head slowly, deliberately, so it wouldn't be taken as a threat. She coughed Energy up onto the sand.

The Hunters, hardened savages though they were, reacted much as the ninja had.

"What is THAT?!" yelped Daddy No-Legs.

"Dragons _eat their young?!_ "

"Is it dead?!"

Firstbourne stood crouched over her baby, tensed to protect her if need be. Her eyes flicked wildly from Hunter to Hunter, waiting for someone to strike.

Nobody did. They all stood frozen in shock, staring at the limp, slimy tangle of limbs. Energy twitched. Weakly she tried to lift her head.

"It's alive . . . " whispered Jet Jack.

Firstbourne's rage had drained away, leaving only exhaustion. Eyes glazed with shame and desperation, she nudged Energy towards the Hunters, whining—oh god, she was _whining_ , keening like a hatchling, pleading for their help.

"Does she want us to take it?" asked Chew Toy, in the quietest voice Faith had ever heard him use.

"What is she doing?" said No-Legs.

All eyes were on Faith again. She took in the bowed form in front of her.

"I think her baby is sick," she said slowly. "And I think she is asking us for help."

She began to remove her weapons—also deliberately, making it clear she wasn't attacking.

"Are you sure about this?" Jet Jack's voice was strained. "It could be a trap. Maybe she wants you to come close so she can—"

"Then you'll succeed me," said Faith tartly. "You know what to do."

Jet Jack froze.

"I-I—"

Faith lowered the last of her weapons to the sand. Spreading her hands placatingly, she began to walk slowly towards Firstbourne and her baby. The Hunters watched, motionless, breathless. Behind Firstbourne the younger dragons shifted, twitched, lowered their heads in preparation in case they had to strike. Wind had her head down by her foreclaws, breathing heavily. It was a wonder she'd gotten this close in the first place.

Faith reached the hatchling. She held out her hands to Firstbourne, showing her flat palms. Firstbourne only looked at her silently.

Not taking her eyes off the dragon mother, Faith crouched down. Gingerly, hesitantly, she moved one hand to rest on the hatchling's back. Firstbourne still didn't move; only watched her closely.

Slightly reassured, Faith moved on to stroking the baby's back, marveling at the sleek scales. And at the unreal strangeness of it all—she had expected to fight to the death, and instead here she was, petting a hatchling. It was so small, so still. So helpless.

She began to carefully inspect the baby, always mindful of Firstbourne's eyes trained on her. There were certainly no injuries. No visible malformations. She had no idea how warm a dragon was supposed to be—could they even have fevers?

"What's wrong?" she asked, looking up to Firstbourne again. Firstbourne tilted her head and shook it, at a loss. Faith sighed in concession and pushed herself to her feet. Trying to ignore the fact that she was turning her back on a dragon, she looked to her Hunters. The choice needed to rest with them.

"She's come to us for help," she called. "What do you say? Do we help her?"

She expected an immediate negative response—just a few minutes ago these people had been raging about not firing the first shot. The Hunters were silent, however, contemplating.

"It's Christmas," said Chew Toy, out of nowhere.

"That _is_ the kind of thing you're supposed to do for Christmas, isn't it?" said No-Legs slowly.

Murmurs from the other Hunters. Gradually they grew into a rumble of assent. One by one Hunters began to shed their weapons and come forward, gathering around the baby dragon. Firstbourne watched them all, still tense, but dizzy with disbelief. They were helping. They were going to try.

"We should start by keeping her warm," called Faith. "This cold can't be good for an infant. Tsippa, Arkade, you're in charge of the firewood. Firstbourne, with your permission, we're going to take the baby into the village. We have a fire pit there."

Firstbourne made no objection as Faith gathered Energy up into her arms, but it can't be said her mind was at ease. As she padded after the group of Hunters, she regained the presence of mind to use her heart-vision again.

She had to look three times before she believed it. The red had faded out. And never had she seen colors so noble in a Hunter's heart.

* * *

The Hunters built a roaring fire and placed Energy next to it, wrapped up in blankets. The baby squirmed, trying to scooch closer to the flames. The Hunters kept trying to figure out what was wrong, while Firstbourne twisted in despair at her muteness. For a moment she almost wished she had brought Wu to explain about the healing plant. What if the Hunters didn't figure it out on their own?

To her relief, however, Faith eventually settled back on her heels and took up discussion with Tsippa, the closest they had to a healer. She immediately advised them to use Healing Plant.

Which was its actual name, by the way. The Hunters didn't believe in giving things mysterious frilly names. They had Healing Plant, Sleeping Plant, Energy Plant, Poison Plant 1, Poison Plant 2, Poison Plant 3 . . . The guy who named Purple Moonruffle had been eating it.

At any rate. The Hunters dug into their stores without hesitation, pulling out all the Healing Plant they could find. Faith _did_ hesitate a little, looking over the handfuls of dried leaves. This was a big risk—this plant had saved countless lives before. Supposing someone got injured before they could gather more?

Worse yet, it turned out there wasn't enough. Arkade, the math whiz, hefted Energy, estimated her weight, and calculated they would need twice as much Healing Plant in order to do any good.

"Could we even find any more growing, in this cold?" said Jet Jack.

"We won't know until we search," said Faith, standing up. "Can somebody stay to make sure the baby doesn't roll into the fire? The rest of us, split up and start searching."

Muzzle raised his hand, burbling.

"Yeah, he's good with kids," said Daddy No-Legs. "Let him stay."

Faith couldn't help but raise an eyebrow, but eventually she nodded. As the others geared up for an expedition, Muzzle plopped down next to the baby dragon and began to stroke her through the blankets, gabbling what _might_ have been baby talk. Energy turned her head to watch him, her dull eyes brightening in curiosity.

Firstbourne stayed behind to watch her baby, but the other dragons followed the Hunters. Faith couldn't help eyeing the procession as they went. Never thought she'd see the day when dragons and her Hunters walked peacefully side-by-side.

Or far in the back, in some cases. Wind, Fire, and Earth kept a _very_ respectful distance. Faith fought back a pang of guilt.

* * *

"That's it all right." Jet Jack lowered her spyglass, sighing. "Worst. Possible. Place."

It really was. They had finally found a large patch of Healing Plant, which liked to grow in shallow snatches of soil among rocks. However, the plant was growing in a crevice high up in a cliff wall. Worse yet, the cliff was part of the Howling Valley—a narrow corridor of stone where the wind gusts reached hundreds of miles an hour. Worse and worse yet, the winds got stronger higher up—exactly where the plant was growing.

"All right," said Faith. "The rest of you, keep searching, maybe there's another patch somewhere easier to reach. Meanwhile we'll see about getting this one."

Humans and dragons alike struggled their way into the Howling Valley, squinting up to the crevice where the plant grew. The dragons exchanged terse roars and bumped their noses together oddly, twisting their necks.

"They're testing who has the smallest snout," said Arkade above the wind.

They had to go back and forth a bit; Wind and Fire refused to come into the valley and come so close to the humans. Earth, the former Slab, at least approached, but he panted visibly and rolled his red eyes in agitation when anyone came too near. The Hunters tried not to look his way.

In the end Lightning won the small-snout contest. Boosting off the ground, he nearly flipped over backwards as the full force of the wind hit him. Sticking his head forward doggedly, he writhed his way upwards, his body contorting as if he were a massive fish swimming upstream.

He fought his way up to the crack in the cliff face, scrabbling for purchase with his claws. No matter how much he twisted his head and banged his snout against the rocks, the watchers below saw he couldn't get any of the plants. At last he gave up, defeated, and let the wind carry him off.

He returned, roaring morosely. The dragons looked to the Hunters expectantly.

"So, I guess one of us will have to climb up," said Jet Jack.

Faith grunted in assent. She looked around at her posse. Arkade with his heavy, unwieldy armor. Chew Toy vehemently uncoordinated. Jet Jack with her giant wind-catching wings. Daddy No-Legs . . . no.

And after all, she _was_ the leader.

"I'll go," she said. "Give me a bag for the plants."

The others looked at her uncertainly, although clearly they all realized they couldn't make it themselves. Jet Jack popped off her visor and held it out to Faith.

"Take it, Chief. It'll keep the sand from blowing into your eyes."

Faith nodded her thanks, slipping the visor on. The bleak white morning became nighttime as the thin metal gave an odd dark sheen to her surroundings.

With a rolled-up burlap sack in her belt, she slowly began the climb. The stone was rough and cold under her fingers; the wind tore at her clothes, buffeting her until it felt like she was dealing with two gravities instead of one. Her left arm ended up doing most of the work, both holding her up and holding her against the wind. She was careful to only move one foot at a time, knowing that her toes lodged in the cliff face were the only thing keeping her from being blown diagonal and dragged away. Thank goodness for Jet Jack's visor; she could feel the windborne sand eating away at her face.

She started to feel tired, but she didn't dare stop to check her progress. It felt like she'd been climbing forever, but suppose she was only a few feet up? Better to just keep climbing till she reached the crevice.

The wind grew stronger. A particularly violent gust sprang up, and Faith hugged the cliff face, digging her fingers desperately into her current handholds.

Then the rock under her left hand broke away. She grabbed desperately for another hold, but it was too late—the entire cliff face crumbled out from underneath her, and suddenly there was nothing to hold, and—

Oh boy. She _definitely_ wasn't just a few feet up.

" _Faith!_ " Jet Jack was too late to catch her, but she was already there as the rubble was settling, sliding to her knees. The other Hunters also scrambled to gather around their leader, who was curled on her side amongst the rocks, twitching.

"Are you all right? What's broken? Is your head okay? Say something!"

Faith eventually heaved herself up on one elbow and gave a ragged gasp, as if she'd emerged from underwater.

"'m fine," she managed, wheezing. "Breath—knocked out of me."

Her breathing steadied, and she gradually moved to sit upright. Everything hurt right now, but miraculously nothing seemed to be broken. Once she trusted herself to talk, she looked up to start discussing a new plan—then stopped, startled. What was everyone looking at her like that for?

Hold up a sec. Were they _worried?_ For a second she'd thought they were judging her for taking the fall so hard, but . . they almost looked frightened. They were honestly concerned that she'd been injured. Like they cared about her, not even as a leader, maybe, but as a person. Even as a friend.

She had no freaking _clue_ how to respond to that.

"What?" she said roughly, because she didn't know what else to say. "You thought that fall would finish me or something? No such luck, I'm hard to kill."

She stood up, shaking gravel from her clothes with unnecessary vigor to avoid the others' eyes. She felt a little bad about brushing them off like this, but good grief, this was so uncomfortable, she couldn't keep sitting here at the bottom of Howling Valley having _feelings_ , they had a job to do—

—An impossible job, by the way. She turned to look up at the cliff face again. There was a large crumbled area halfway up now, and who knew if there would be more handholds or unstable rock up there.

"You can't be thinking of trying again," said No-Legs. "It's a death trap, next time you might end up much worse."

"Could we use dynamite?" asked Chew Toy, a little too hopefully.

"Maybe I could build some kind of climbing system," offered Arkade.

"We don't have that kind of time," said Faith impatiently. "The baby dragon needs those plants fast."

"You can't go up there again, it's crazy!"

"Send Chew Toy, he's durable."

" _Hey!_ Why, you—"

"Stop!" interrupted Jet Jack. "Look, the wind!"

They all paused. Slowly it dawned on them that the air around them had gone strangely still, no longer ripping at their hair and clothes. Next they realized that only two feet away the wind was still raging; they were standing at the calm center of a howling tornado. And finally they noticed a mottled white dragon standing nearby, her head held high, wind curling through her whiskers.

"I think she's offering to keep the wind off you," said Arkade.

"Would you do that?" Faith started towards Wind. Immediately the dragon's head dropped, her lips pulling back in a primal snarl, and the wind began to hit everyone full-force again. Fire and Earth were instantly at Wind's side, hissing and snapping around at everyone they saw, draping their wings protectively over their sister.

Faith stood still, blinking in confusion.

"Okay, so she'll keep you alive," said Jet Jack wryly. "Just don't get too close."

Faith took in the dragon's defensive posture and realized she was _afraid_. She hadn't known a dragon could look that close to a panic attack. But her eyes were resolute, and she stood her ground. She had a baby sister to save.

"Good enough for me," said Faith. She put up her hands placatingly and stepped back. "Nobody get close to her while I'm up there, all right? Unless you're really hungry to climb up the social ladder."

The joke got some disapproving growls.

Faith stepped up to the cliff face again. A shadow suddenly loomed over her, and she looked up to see Ice on her hind legs, craning her neck and blowing a stream of freezing air. A layer of ice formed over the damaged part of the cliff, complete with handholds.

"Appreciate it," said Faith.

It was a long and difficult climb, especially with all the new aches from falling. At first Wind was able to control the air around Faith perfectly: it was deathly still, except for a stiff breeze helping to pin her to the cliff wall. As Faith climbed higher and the wind grew stronger, Wind's job became much harder. She struggled, panting, straining, as her siblings churned around her, rumbling encouragement. Faith began to feel a significant breeze tugging her sideways off the cliff again. Gritting her teeth, she climbed onwards.

Her hands stuck to to the handholds as she crossed the icy section. Grit began to chew away at her face again. Better yet, a cloud slid over the sun. To most people the bleak morning only seemed a little dimmer, but to Faith, wearing a visor and in the shadow of the cliff, the whole world seemed to go dark. How the heck did Jet Jack function in this thing? At night and everything!

Cursing under her breath, Faith stopped climbing. She couldn't risk it blind, but the sand was too intense to remove the visor. She would have to wait for the sun to come out again. She thought she heard a commotion down below . . . the others must be wondering why she'd stopped. She tried not to think about Wind down there, struggling to control her element, slowly wearing down and losing power. If she lost her grip on the wind right now . . .

Suddenly Faith's surroundings lit up in searing, flickering light. Starting, she peered over her shoulder. Lightning was hovering just behind her, his small wings beating madly in the full force of the wind, his entire body crackling with arcs of electricity. He was already panting from fighting the wind, but he tossed his head at her vehemently, urging her to clamber on.

She did. An eternity later, her fingers found the edge of the crevice where the blasted Healing Plant was growing. The wind was really tearing at her now—she hated to think what it would be like without help from a Wind dragon. Bracing one arm inside the tiny space, she fished out her sack, clenched it in her teeth, and began to shovel Healing Plant into it by the fistful. Her muscles screamed for a rest; she tried not to think about the journey back down.

Somehow she managed to clear out all the plant and tie the sack shut. She tried to figure out how to carry it so it wouldn't catch the wind. On her belt or in her teeth? It was heavier than she'd expected . . .

A hoarse roar sounded behind her. She turned again, and now there was Fire, flailing against the hurricane-force winds. Although he was decidedly the best-suited dragon for flying, he still looked like he would be dashed against the cliff face any minute now. He roared again, stretching out his neck towards Faith.

Gritting her teeth, Faith stretched out her arm in return, holding out the sack of Healing Plant. It brushed his muzzle, but he didn't take it. His roar sounded a little frustrated now as he struggled to draw closer. It finally dawned on Faith: he was offering to carry her down.

Her first reaction was " _hell no_." Fire had been her very first catch as Heavy Metal. She had personally driven his head into the ground and tightened a chain around his jaws. He'd been enslaved by the Hunters for years after that. He would absolutely dump her straight off onto the stone fifty feet below. Besides, who wanted to take chances clinging to a dragon in tornado-grade winds, with no chains? That was son-of-the-First-Spinjitzu-Master stuff.

Oh cor. Wu, that little wretch. What would _he_ do in this situation?

Sighing, Faith resigned herself to her death. She knew she'd never make the climb back down. Time to do all that trust stuff the ninja made such a big deal about.

Somehow she got onto Fire's back without plummeting to her death. Somehow she managed to find enough knobs and scales to cling to. _Somehow_ they made it safely down to the ground.

Fire landed sloppily, while the Hunters cheered. Faith slid off his back a little faster than chill, but he ignored her. Instead he roared urgently to Wind, who was quivering and heaving for air, her head down and eyes squeezed shut with exertion. She blinked hazily at him, then sighed and relaxed. Screaming air rushed back into the canyon all at once. Wind collapsed, blood spurting from her nostrils.

Faith looked on in some horror—she had seen Hunters die that way—but luckily in Wind's case it seemed to just be a nosebleed. She nestled her chin into the ground, her sides heaving, and gazed with weary fondness at her siblings freaking out over her.

Faith didn't want to agitate her again, but she felt like she needed to acknowledge these heroics. She approached gingerly, watching Wind's reaction. The dragon's damp greenish eyes roved over her and fixed . . . but she didn't tense. Only blinked slowly, blowing out a long, tired breath.

Cautiously Faith reached up to place a hand on the dragon's muzzle, marveling at the pulse still pounding there.

"Brave girl," she murmured. Wind huffed.

"Look who's talkin'," said Jet Jack. Faith blinked, registered, then reddened.

"Don't you start, Jet Jack."

"Whaaaaat?" said Jet Jack sweetly. Faith sighed and swung the sack of Healing Plant over her shoulder before anyone else got any ideas. She'd never minded back when she was Heavy Metal, but compliments were a lot harder to take with the mask off.

"Come on, everyone. We've got a baby dragon to save!"

Earth stooped to slide his head under Wind's body, draping her over himself to carry her home. The other dragons trotted in an eager squadron around Faith, almost ignoring the other Hunters following as well.

"How you survive in this thing is beyond me," said Faith, pulling off the visor and holding it out to Jet Jack. Then she realized with a start that it was flecked with blood. Lifting a hand to her face, she felt rough, sand-blasted skin and trickles of sticky moisture.

"It's gotten me a couple of concussions," said Jet Jack, wiping the visor off on one of her eight shirts. "But at least I can still see."

"Mm . . . " Faith debated for a moment, then managed a gruff, "Thanks." It was a little outside of standard Hunter vocabulary, but Jet Jack only gave her a grin before popping the visor back on.

* * *

When they returned to the village, they were mildly dismayed to find that Muzzle was now under the blanket with the dragon, wrapped up tightly with Energy in his lap, chattering stories of charm and wonder. Energy was gazing up into his masked face with a sleepy kind of awe, while Firstbourne watched, rather perplexed.

"All right, we've got the plant!" called Faith, tossing down the sack. "We're going to need a _lot_ more firewood."

The drama was far from over. The Healing Plant had to be processed for use, and there were different procedures for fresh versus dry leaves. The whole village got involved with cutting, heating, boiling, stirring, bringing water, keeping the fires lit. Then there was the question of convincing Energy to eat the medicine at all. She didn't even have an appetite for meat right now, let alone plants. The other dragons brought fresh prey by the brace, and the Hunters tried to conceal the thick Healing Plant paste inside it. Muzzle again proved valuable here, distracting Energy with chatter until she absent-mindedly ate what she was offered.

The whole process took the rest of the day. By evening, they had finally coaxed the last of the medicine down Energy's apathetic throat. Faith pushed loose hair from her eyes and looked tiredly up to Firstbourne.

"That's it," she said. "We've done all we can. It should start acting in two to four hours, then another ten hours or so for it to finish. In the meantime, there's nothing to do except keep her warm."

Firstbourne rumbled in acquiescence, looking mournfully down at Energy. The hatchling had fallen asleep, exhausted from all these strangers lifting her and prodding her and pushing strange-smelling food into her jaws. After a moment Firstbourne stepped over and took Energy into her mouth, preparing to go home. She dipped her head to the Hunters, then boosted away from the ground and took off. Her other children followed, some of them casting glances back to the village as they left.

Faith stood looking after them, her mind hazy with exhaustion. Around her, some of the Hunters began flopping down to rest among the chaos of cauldrons, grinding-stones, and firewood. Others joined Faith in watching the dragons leave.

No-Legs clicked up next to her.

"I think we did that right, didn't we?" he said. "The whole Christmas spirit thing."

"I think we did _great_ ," said Jet Jack, from atop a stack of firewood.

Faith hummed absently. Somehow, she felt no satisfaction; only a strange dread. There was no guarantee that the Healing Plant would help Energy at all. She might have an illness the plant didn't work on; perhaps the plant didn't work on dragons at all. Or perhaps she was too far gone already. There was a very high chance the hatchling would die anyway. And then . . . a very high chance Firstbourne would take her grief out on the Hunters who failed to save her.

She looked around at the others, all weary but content. Her heart bled at the thought of the risk they'd taken.

"Tell you what," she said quietly, wiping soot from her face. "We can forget rationing for a day. Tomorrow, you can have your Christmas."

Jet Jack and No-Legs turned to look at her, startled.

"You mean it?!"

"I mean it. You've all worked hard enough."

The two exchanged a delighted look and shot off, darting from Hunter to Hunter calling "Did you hear that? We're going to have Christmas!" Drowsy Hunters stirred from half-sleep, passing on the message, till the village seemed to echo with "Christmas?" "The real one?" "Tomorrow, for sure?" "We're having it!"

Faith sat down by the dying fire, holding out her arms to the warmth. She listened to the eager chatter rolling back and forth behind her, and tried to fight back the hollow feeling in her chest. Her eyelids were heavy after the previous sleepless night.

A shuffling step and the tapping of a cane came up next to her. She didn't look up, but she felt Redskull's quiet presence.

"You should be proud," he said at last.

Faith huffed lightly, a wry smile flickering across her face.

"You can't say I never change my mind."

Redskull chuckled. Faith leaned her elbows on her knees and stared into the embers, pulsing softly in the gathering twilight. The ripples of red and orange blurred across the backs of her eyes, the murmurs of her Hunters drifted around her, and eventually her eyelids slipped closed.

* * *

 **A/N: Was going to try alternating Hunters and ninja again, but it kinda broke up the flow. Next chapter is back to Ninjago!**


	10. Hard Candy Christmas

**Country's not my thing, but I do love that song.**

* * *

"Mannnnnnnn, I'm _bored_ . . . " Jay slid off the sofa, upside-down, and sighed blissfully. "I love it."

Nya grumbled drowsily and felt around for the blanket Jay had dragged with him. They'd mostly been sleeping in so far, or just snuggling into random comfortable corners of the living room. PIXAL and Zane were playing a lazy game of cat's cradle. Cole was burrowed into an armchair sleeping so hard it made you exhausted just looking at him.

It wasn't all just relaxation, though: every now and then they got more calls about criminal flare-ups, and a couple of them would duck out to handle it.

Speak of the devil, the phone rang.

"Bells, bells, who's got 'em, I want 'em," growled Kai sleepily, clambering over the back of the sofa and fumbling the phone off the receiver. "Yeah, ninja HQ, 'sup? Oh. Nuh-huh. Sure, we'll send someone." He hung up and turned to the others with a sigh. "Heist at the coffee place on Wilford. Nose goes."

He was already poking himself firmly between the eyes. Zane and PIXAL hurried to touch their noses as well, yanking the cat's-cradle game into a Gordian knot around their wrists. Jay and Nya had been whapping each other with sofa cushions, but Jay caught on fast and followed suit. Nya's natural aggression became her undoing, as she opted to clobber Jay now that he was unprotected before touching her own nose. Glances shifted to Lloyd and Cole. Lloyd shrugged.

"Ah, I'll go."

Now everyone turned to Cole. He was still violently asleep, and snoring.

"You're on call, Dirtclod," said Jay, to no effect.

"Oh, let him sleep." Nya sighed, getting to her feet. "I guess that makes me the last one. Goin' with ya, Lloyd."

"Awwwww, Nya . . . " said Jay plaintively.

"You can come with us too, if you want."

Jay knit his brows, considering, and looked at the cold blue sky outside the window. Then he sighed resignedly and pulled the nearest blanket over his head.

"Oh, _fine_ then." Nya shook her head fondly. "Guess it's just you and me, Lloyd."

Lloyd was already halfway out the door. He gave Kai a significant look as he left, and Kai shook his head in exasperation. Lloyd hadn't been enjoying the relaxation much; he was constantly on-edge, always vigilant, twitching, fidgeting. He had volunteered for almost every call so far, seemingly preferring work to just sitting and _thinking_ about stuff. Kai had been worried enough about him to put off inviting Skylor over, despite Lloyd's vehement protests.

Nya gave him an unreadable smile as they took off for Wilford Boulevard. He gave a nod and a smile back. He was only hazily aware of it, but honestly, these days he felt more comfortable around Nya than he did around any of his other teammates. He respected PIXAL deeply, but she was still a little mysterious, a little emotionally detached. And the guys . . . they had fallen out of sync, just a little. He and they had such intense separate experiences now. A whole batch of troubling memories they couldn't fully share, a lot of new mental scars they didn't understand the origins of.

Not like he felt fully _alienated_ , or anything. And not like he was any less overjoyed to have them back. But still . . . at least with Nya, they were perfectly on the same page. They'd shared the exact same pattern of despair, exhaustion, white-knuckled will to live. There were no gaps in their shared memory.

On patrol with her like this, it all felt familiar; it was the closest he felt to being at peace.

They took care of the situation on Wilford quickly, bringing back the stolen contents of several cash registers and helping to tidy up the ransacked coffee shop. They got free lattes for their troubles.

Sipping gratefully at the warm drinks, they took a breather and wandered through the streets. There were a few strands of Christmas lights in shop windows here and there, but it was much more subdued than most years. Most of the people bustling back and forth still wore tired, harrowed expressions. A few of them smiled when they saw the ninja, though.

"Hey. What the . . . ?" Nya suddenly pointed down the street. Lloyd followed her hand and saw a family coming their way, dragging a Christmas tree. But it was the most horrifically disfigured Christmas tree he'd ever seen: half the branches were missing, and the rest were smushed.

Lloyd and Nya tried not to stare. Looking back to where the family had come from, they saw a significant bustle, and more families dragging battered trees to and fro. Sharing a puzzled look, they trotted over to see what was up.

The parking lot of the community center was _full_ of ghoulish evergreens. It was also swarming with Ninjago citizens, rummaging around trying to pick out the least-ghoulish. The smell of oozing pine sap was overpowering.

"The tree farm!" said Lloyd suddenly. "These are all the trees that got wrecked while we were fighting Garmadon!"

They went looking for the tree farm owner. Sure enough, he was perched on a stool and working the till, selling a tree every five to ten minutes. He smiled and waved when he saw the ninja, then handed the money belt over to his tweenaged daughter and came over to chat.

"You're selling all the broken trees?" said Nya, gesturing at the lot.

"Yep. They were going to dry out anyway, so I figured, why waste them? I'm selling them for two to four bucks a pop, since they're such a mess."

"Aren't you . . . losing a lot of money on that?" said Lloyd awkwardly.

"Yeah . . . " The farmer shrugged and gave a rueful laugh. "I guess it serves me right. I should've just lowered the prices to something folks could afford in the first place. Then at least people could've had normal trees instead of _this_ , and I'd have probably done better than this anyway. But since I didn't, I guess this is the good ending. More people get to have at least _some_ kind of tree, and I can still earn back a little of what it took to grow them."

"What are you going to do next year?" asked Nya quietly.

"Ahhh . . . I'll think of something." The farmer waved abstractly, then shook his head and offered a game smile. "Don't worry about it, Miss. We'll be all right. Do you guys want a tree? They're not much to look at, but after everything you've done for Ninjago, I'll give you one on the house—"

"Maybe later," said Lloyd. "We'll bring the others so they can help pick one. But thanks . . . "

Lloyd and Nya left the community center, expressions somewhat downcast. It was always sobering to see how random citizens sometimes had their lives bulldozed by forces of evil, no matter how hard the ninja all tried to protect Ninjago.

The others were also disheartened once they heard the story.

"There were barely any trees left standing in that farm," said Cole. "He's not gonna have enough to sell next year. And there's no _way_ he can make enough money to pull through until new trees grow."

"I know," said Lloyd, folding his arms unhappily. "You guys have any ideas on how we can help?"

Some mumbling. Disappointed shaking of heads.

"Well . . . I guess we can start by paying full price for our tree," said Kai. "We have some money squirrelled away somewhere, right?"

"I have a little under my mattress," said Zane. "I'll go get it."

"I think I have some birthday money left over," said Cole.

"And there's the 'mad money' in the sugar bowl," said Nya. "Might as well use that too. These days, everyone's just mad all the time anyway."

They went to get the sugar bowl, then came up short.

"Riiiiiiiight," sighed Nya. The kitchen _still_ hadn't been cleared of popcorn.

"I think it's time we did something about this," said Lloyd wearily.

For a while they just stood there, unsure of how to even start. Eventually they got some cardboard boxes and began to scoop popcorn into them, to at least get it out of the way.

"Man, we're gonna be eating popcorn for every meal for the rest of our _lives_ ," groaned Kai. "Can we just use it for packing peanuts or something?"

"Maybe we could feed birds with it," said Jay.

"Oh, sure." Kai snorted. "And start Ninjago's largest bird zoo. We could feed it for years."

"Or we could open seven hundred movie theaters and give free admission as long as you buy popcorn," joked Lloyd bleakly.

"Or stuff mattresses with it."

"Or make nine THOUSAND miles of popcorn garlands."

"Or a couple million popcorn balls, and then we could sell 'em to raise money for the tree farm," said Jay. Then he blinked and shook his head violently. " _Wait_."

The others were staring at him. After a moment Kai poked his head out into the hallway.

"Zaaaaaaaaaane, where can we find a thousand pounds of sugar and like . . . at least three industrial-sized barrels of corn syrup?"

* * *

Soon the kitchen was buzzing. They had cleared enough of the popcorn to reach the oven, and Zane was already preparing popcorn-ball syrup with whatever ingredients they had. Meanwhile Cole was placing an order for more ingredients in bulk.

"This is perfect!" said Zane. "Now people won't have to choose between food or decorations. These are both!"

"We can sell them next to the tree lot, so people can get trees and popcorn balls at the same time. Really cheap, but with this many of 'em it'll add up!"

"Will people be willing to buy them, though?" said PIXAL. "They might not fancy how much of this popcorn has been on the floor."

"Who says we're going to tell 'em?" Jay was assiduously preparing lengths of ribbon to hang the popcorn balls from. "We have a really clean floor. What they don't know won't hurt 'em."

He glanced up, then flinched at the look PIXAL was giving him.

"Well, _what?_ It _is_ a really clean floor. You know how tidy Zane likes the kitchen."

PIXAL glared harder.

"All _right_ , all _right_ , we'll put a disclaimer on them! Full disclosure," groaned Jay. Under his breath he added, "Ms. Food Safety Commission."

PIXAL, who had Nindroid-excellent hearing, narrowed her eyes at him. After a moment she cut an interrogative glance over to Zane, who shook his head placatingly and mouthed, "he's joking." PIXAL nodded slightly and said nothing more. Like Zane long before her, she had a little difficulty getting along with Jay sometimes. He was a hard person to get along with if you didn't have a funny switch.

"I haven't made popcorn balls in forever," said Nya contentedly. "This is going to be fun!"

"I've never, actually," ventured Lloyd.

"Oh, you're going to _love_ this," said Jay.

"Just don't eat too many. You'd be surprised how fast you get sick off these things."

"Also Cole, Nya, Jay, hair nets. All of you."

"One other thing, guys, all our tree money is gonna go towards the ingredients," said Cole. "So I guess we might not have a tree this year after all . . . "

"No big deal," said Jay. "We can just hang ornaments on Lloyd."

"Har har." Lloyd rolled his eyes, while the others muffled giggles.

"That works," said Kai. "He's even as prickly as a real pine."

"I am _not,_ " sputtered Lloyd, indignant.

"No pine smell, though," said Cole glumly.

"If you spring for one of those little car air fresheners, I'll wear it," deadpanned Lloyd. He felt a familiar burst of warmth when the others laughed. For a second he got a hazy sense of deja vu, a flickering memory that he'd felt this way before. Safe, at peace, joking about stupid stuff—they used to be like this all the time, didn't they? Boy, he'd gone out of practice.

He snatched for the feeling, desperate to keep it, but it slipped through his fingers and holed up in some distant recess of his mind. The contemporary emptiness took over again.

"Lloyd?" Cole was snapping his fingers inches away from Lloyd's face now. "Lloyyyyyd, do you read me? Yoo-hoo."

"Ah!" Lloyd snapped out of his thoughts, realizing that he'd started spacing out again. He gave Cole a guilty look and began to apologize, but Cole interrupted.

"So, you want lessons or what? Popcorn balls are harder than they look."

"I, uh . . . " Lloyd collected himself, then nodded. "Sure."

* * *

"Okayyyyyy, what do you call a penguin at the North Pole?" Jay had the attention span of a bumblebee. He'd gotten bored long ago, so now he was propped upside-down in the corner of the kitchen, drumming his heels against the wall and torturing the others with a book of Christmas jokes.

"Just a penguin?" said Kai, having figured out how these jokes went.

"No, _lost!_ "

It was an absolutely terrible joke book. That kind of didn't matter, though. They were all sugar-high out of their minds from sneaking handfuls of syrupy popcorn, and the atmosphere had been getting nuttier by the quarter-hour. By now most of them had reached the point where they were laughing just because an _attempt_ at humor had been made.

"How is Christmas like a dragon in the desert?"

"Oh, I know this one! I know!" Nya waved her hand. "They both have Sandy Claws."

"You got it," agreed Jay, over the general groaning and laughter. "Oh hey, hey, how much did Santa pay for his sleigh? Nothing, it was on the house."

The kitchen was crowded. Kai had finally convinced Skylor to leave her noodle shop. Dareth was on his way over. Misako and Wu had both joined long ago, although Wu had been forced to put his beard in a hair net. By PIXAL, of course, who was by now wearing a name tag of unknown origins that read "Ms. Food Safety Commission." She took her office seriously.

It was nice. The kitchen was really warm by now, almost stuffy, but nobody minded. It was also thick with the caramel scent of warming syrup, and most of the counters were stacked twenty deep with popcorn balls. Everyone was more relaxed than they had been in weeks, lulled by the pleasant routine of shaping popcorn, adding ribbons, and wrapping them up nicely to sell. Well, and also distracted by Jay's gauntlet of puns.

"Why does Santa have three gardens?"

"Oh _no_ —"

"Somebody stop him!"

"Don't you dare say it, Jay!"

Jay was giggling too hard to read the punchline by now. Cole tried to separate him from the book. Jay switched to employing the book as a weapon. It was a 25-page paperback. Not really clear what he planned to achieve with it.

Lloyd had turned out to be pretty terrible at making popcorn balls. His always turned out misshapen, and he was basically wearing gloves of sticky popcorn by now, which he didn't dare lick off because Ms. Food Safety Commission was always watching. He didn't mind any of it, though. The others kept trying to give him advice or improve his technique, and it was nice trying to learn from them, arms tangled over each other's as they tried to adjust his hands into the right configuration, laughing together when he somehow only managed to get worse.

He'd recaptured that feeling from earlier, the elusive warm-fuzzy sensation. It wasn't steady—every now and then the thought of impending doom would burst into his mind, like an airhorn interrupting a pretty song. But it got rarer and rarer as the afternoon wore on. Everyone was _here_. Nothing bad was happening, nobody was hurt or missing.

He hadn't fully realized (though he'd already realized much too much) how lonely he'd been over that entire year when his friends were scattered around Ninjago. Then as soon as they got back together they'd been thrust into disaster, then he'd thought they were _dead_ , then they'd been stuck in the First Realm, and since then they'd all been running around trying to fix the city and slap patches over the spewing holes in their sanity. It had been literally forever since they got to just hang out and goof off. He had to admit, the others had been right—this was _so_ much better than checking off boxes on traditional Christmas stuff.

The sugar high just got more and more pronounced, though. When you got a solid ten minutes of entertainment out of switching different vowels into the word "grinch," it was really time to stop.

* * *

 **A/N: Huh. I usually try not to post on weekdays, but I might over the coming week. Gotta crank this monstrosity down to a finish, finally. Two, maybe three more chapters?**


	11. The Weather Outside is Frightful

**My unsuspecting tail writing this chapter: Hmmm, Firstbourne's like the size of a coach bus, right? Little bit bigger? Yeah, that sounds reasonable. Yep. *gets another look at Firstbourne next to humans* HECC *goes back to rewrite chapter***

* * *

Faith awoke groggy and disoriented, dimly realizing she was inside her hut now, slouched back against a wall. How did she get here?

The next second she realized she'd been sleeping with her head on Chew Toy's shoulder. Muffling an indignant yelp, she jerked away, brushing at her clothes as she could wipe away the traces of contact. Chew Toy only stirred in his sleep, chuckling and twitching one foot as he dreamed. Faith regarded him incredulously. What was _he_ doing in here?

Looking around, she attained new heights of baffled indignation: _everyone_ was in here. Jet Jack was at the table with her head in her arms; Tsippa was off in the corner cuddled up with her fiancé; Arkade was sleeping _standing up_ in another corner; No-Legs was on the floor with his arms folded and his chin on his chest; and Muzzle was sprawled on his stomach atop No-Legs' leg mech, one arm dangling to the floor. Even his snores came out as little growls.

Faith shook her head, grinding the heel of her palm into one eye. This was just priceless. She closed her eyes for five minutes and these chumps all just invited themselves into her hut.

They looked peaceful, though. She figured she'd let them sleep. Honestly, she was struck by an odd urge to pat Muzzle on the head—he might be a pint-sized terror when he was awake, but asleep he kind of looked like a baby dragon himself. Wonder how Firstbourne and Energy were doing . . .

Reflexively Faith glanced out the window, to see if any dragons were coming. Then she nearly had a heart attack. The next second she had flung her door open and was staring up into the sky.

The _heck_. Was THIS. The clouds were molting. Or the rain was . . . something was very wrong with the rain. It was _white_. Giant feathery clumps of white, falling much slower than rain should. And it didn't make that soft pattering noise Faith had grown to love. It was dead silent. White powder was starting to accumulate on the ground, on the windowsills, on the rooftops. Distant huts were hazy behind a soft mist of drifting flakes, and the horizon was shrouded completely.

Generally Hunters tried to be prudent about unfamiliar things, but Faith was too bewildered to think much. Unwittingly she held out her hands, catching the ashy flakes and bringing them closer to examine. They dissolved against her skin, leaving only tiny droplets of water.

Faith looked between her hands and the sky for a moment. Well. She was still dreaming. Maybe she'd hit her head falling off that cliff after all.

Behind her, Muzzle appeared in the doorway, grumbling drowsily and trying to shut the door against the cold. He squinted sleepily at the outdoors, not registering at first. Then his eyes went wide and he gave a hair-raising screech.

It also raised the others. Within seconds they were crowding in the doorway, peering at the village and sky just as blankly as Faith.

"What's happening?" asked No-Legs.

"Is it safe?" asked Arkade.

"It doesn't hurt . . . " said Faith. Only now she realized that she had drifted past her doorstep and was standing fully under the shower of white. She turned towards the others, searching if anyone had some idea of what was going on. They all looked utterly lost, though. They were slipping cautiously out the door one by one, flinching when the first soft flakes brushed their skin.

"This is like that time when it started to rain," said Jet Jack, eyeing the clouds suspiciously. "Maybe this is normal too?"

They went to ask Redskull. The walk to his hut was a very spooky business. No-Legs had brought a blanket and was shielding his head, looking warily around at everything. Jet Jack looked disconcerted at the bare spots left by her feet, tried to stop leaving prints, then boosted off the ground, preferring to avoid this weirdness. Chew Toy was maybe the calmest. He was trying to eat the stuff.

The other villagers were bewildered too, just like they had been the first time rain fell. Nervous eyes peeked out through doors and windows, and heads poked out murmuring, "is it safe?" Seeing that Faith and the others weren't getting hurt, some of the more daring Hunters began to creep out of their houses, pausing to stare up into the sky.

Redskull answered the door with his hood on crooked, grumbling about early hours. He lit up in a smile when he heard what was happening, though.

"Ohhhhhh yes, I remember that! Snow! That's wonderful! That's just what happens instead of rain when it's cold. It's like ice, but softer."

"Is there anything _else_ that falls from the sky that you forgot to tell us about?" asked No-Legs irately.

"Hmmm . . . " Redskull rubbed his chin. "Don't _think_ so."

"But it's harmless?" said Faith, just to make sure. "We don't have to do anything about it?"

"Ahh, maybe try not to touch it with your bare hands, once it builds up thicker. It's cold. Wear your metalwork gloves or something."

"Builds up thicker? . . . "

"Of course. Sometimes you have to wade through it up to your knees."

The Hunters exchanged blank looks, letting this sink in.

"I can't believe this is supposed to be normal," said Jet Jack at last.

* * *

Once everyone had gotten over the shock of snowfall a little bit, they all started to prepare for Christmas. They really didn't know what they were doing, but they tried their best. The forge was running, smoke curling from its stack as the workers tried to tinker with scrap metal. Other Hunters tried to weave things out of straw. Some of them set to work preparing the leftover prey that the dragons had left behind yesterday. Arkade and Chew Toy dug around in the clutter filling Redskull's hut till they found his book of recipes, and several of the Hunters set to work trying them. There was a lot of head-scratching about ingredient substitutions, as well as squabbling over which recipes should be halved or quartered to conserve food.

"We're all going to get one mouthful of Christmas pudding," grumbled Arkade, throwing dried squashes into the cauldron because they didn't have figs. "And enough soup to fill the tip of a spoon."

"Quit grouching," snorted No-Legs, who was stirring the pot. "At least we get to have _some_." He sniffed dubiously at the mixture. "And honestly, you might not have many takers."

"Needs more spices . . . " mumbled Arkade.

"Oh mercy, get your hands off that spice pouch. It'd be nice if it was edible for the _rest_ of us!"

The snow accumulated fast. Everyone kept pausing work to discover new marvels, or carefully track how thickly it was piling up. As Faith wandered between the buildings, she was dimly aware of the flakes tickling her face and swishing strangely around her feet with each step. For the most part, though, she was distracted by two things: One, how freaking _cold_ she was _._ Two, fretting. About everything.

"Do you really have to do that now, Chief?" Chew Toy watched her going around the granary, marking the holes in the walls with chalk so she could patch them later. "There's snow!"

"Mm-hmm. What about it?" Faith stood on her toes, trying to reach a hole higher up.

"Have you even looked at this stuff?" Jet Jack was perched on the edge of a nearby roof, swinging her legs. "It's shaped like _stars_."

Faith looked around at the mostly shapeless shroud of white, then gave Jet Jack a skeptical look.

" _Tiny_ stars!" said Chew Toy excitedly, holding up one hand unnecessarily close to Faith's face. She attempted to cross her eyes, then disentangled herself from Chew Toy's arm and caught a few flakes in her own hand to inspect instead.

"Huh, you're right. Interesting."

"And it sort of crunches when you walk on it," continued Chew Toy. "Real quiet."

"And it's fluffy!" said Jet Jack, hopping off the roof. "But if you squeeze it, then it packs sort of like clay."

"And look at the way the wind blows it around."

"And look how different everything looks!" Jet Jack pointed out at the smooth, softened contours of cottages. "Everything sparkles now. It's beautiful, isn't it?"

"Mm-hmm." Faith glanced in that direction, then knit her brows. "I hope the roofs don't fall in."

Chew Toy smacked himself none too gently in the face. Faith gave him a puzzled look, while Jet Jack sighed.

"Do you _ever_ chill, Chief? Like. Even just a little?"

"Roofs falling in is nothing to be calm about," said Faith reproachfully.

"Ugh . . . " Jet Jack slumped, resigned. "All right, Chew Toy, come on. We're wasting our time here."

She and Chew Toy wandered on, exchanging an expressive eye-roll and shaking their heads glumly. Faith cast a final dubious glance after them—what had _that_ been all about?—then turned to continue her rounds. Her gaze drifted to the horizon, then locked.

"Get back here, you two," she called, keeping her voice level. "We may have a dragon situation."

They came skidding back and looked where Faith pointed. It was hard to see through the snow, so the dragons were already quite close. All of them were again approaching, on foot.

"What's happening _now?_ " asked Chew Toy, bewildered.

"Not sure," said Faith. "Let's hope it's not about the hatchling dying."

Silence as the other two came to the same realization Faith had last night. Jet Jack swore. Then they both hurried after Faith, who was already striding towards the edge of the village.

"Look calm," said Faith lowly, as they caught up. "They don't look too aggressive. Our odds are better than yesterday, honestly, don't give the others reason to panic."

"But if the hatchling died, _then_ what?" whispered Jet Jack.

"Damage control," said Faith grimly.

" _Geez_." Jet Jack looked fed up with everything, but she was already untucking her wings, just in case. "We just _can't_ have a quiet morning."

There was a lot less panic this time around. Some villagers tagged along with Faith and the others, more of a straggling swarm than the foaming mob from yesterday. More and more curious, faintly nervous Hunters assembled outside the village walls. Faith stood in front, her hands jammed in her pockets, waiting resolutely.

The dragons were still a fair distance away when something seemed to break away from Firstbourne. A small green form came sailing over the snow, bounding like a rock skipping over a lake.

"It's the hatchling! Energy!" someone shouted.

Energy was right in front of the crowd of Hunters when she abruptly juddered to a halt, nearly faceplanting into the snow, and flicked her head back and forth urgently. Then she gave a happy screech and leaped for Muzzle, tackling him backwards. The others watched, bewildered, as the hatchling carried on like an over-excited puppy, hurling herself back and forth, head-butting Muzzle lovingly, tearing maniacal circles around him and springing up into the air. Meanwhile Muzzle was turning around and around trying to pat her head, keeping up a steady delighted chatter that sounded like Muzzle for "Look at _you!_ So big! So strong! Good for you! Good for you!"

"Is he part dragon?" whispered Chew Toy.

Faith shook her head, lost. She wasn't sure how Muzzle and Energy had immediately designated each other Best Friends Forever in the Entire World Ever, but there was definitely a real bond in place. Energy had worn herself out by now and plopped herself into Muzzle's arms, gnawing on one of the metal bars in his mask. Muzzle was hugging her unabashedly, still crooning baby talk and blissfully unaware that most of the village was watching. This was going to hurt his reputation.

Faith looked up to Firstbourne, who was standing quietly and watching her hatchling.

"We're glad that she recovered," she said. "Congratulations. And thank you for letting us know."

Firstbourne inclined her head silently. Then she turned back and looked to the other dragons. One by one her children stepped forward, their footsteps muffled in the snow. They were all carrying prey. One by one they set down the carcasses of large animals, some of which the Hunters had never even seen before—enough meat to feed the village for days. Each stepped back after laying their catch down, indicating that it was free to take. As the dragons pulled back the Hunters drifted forward, some of them gathering around the stranger animals, exclaiming in hushed tones and trying to figure out how to prepare them for eating.

Once the last of the prey had been presented, Firstbourne gave a gruff woofing sound. Energy had been bouncing from Hunter to Hunter curiously, always circling back to Muzzle, but now her head perked up. When Firstbourne woofed again, Energy looked disappointed, but gave Muzzle a final head-rub and dutifully scampered back to her mother's side. Firstbourne shooed her gently between her foreclaws, then reared back to give the Hunters a last proper look. She inclined her head again, formally giving her thanks.

"Thank _you_ ," said Faith. "We were in need of the extra food. It's much appreciated."

Firstbourne nodded guardedly. Again there was a long, heavy silence. Both sides were intensely uncomfortable. Energy was freakin' three days old and had no clue about anything, but everyone else here was being slowly suffocated under a crush of mixed feelings. It was nice that they'd formally sworn off combat, and all. But the couple decades of slitting each other's throats and ruining each other's lives had gone . . . aaaabsolutely nowhere. Right at the front of everyone's mind right now, on both sides. Unspoken. It was hard to look each other levelly in the eye.

It was a shame, Faith thought, startling herself. It was too freaking _bad_. She hated that it had to be like this—both sides looking at each other from across an unbridgeable rift. She watched Energy, who had squirmed out from between Firstbourne's claws and was now scampering among her older brothers and sisters. Wind was trying to herd her back towards Firstbourne, her eyes soft with unmistakable love. The other dragons were sneaking glances their way, clearly wishing the diplomatic conference would finish so they could get back to fussing over their baby sister. They were just a family who were overjoyed to see one of their own alive and healthy. They could've been friends. But it was a little too late to take anything back. To take _everything_ back. The most they could ask was to just leave each other alone.

Firstbourne seemed tired. She ran her eyes one last time over the bedraggled crowds of Hunters, met Faith's gaze accidentally, and immediately looked away. Sighing, she retrieved Energy again and turned to call the rest of her brood after her. Her eyes searched the group briefly to make sure everyone was—oh, curses. Where was Lightning?

The answer became evident when a loud snort came from the top of a nearby dune, and Lightning came bounding over the crest. Diplomatic procedure was lost on that one. He floundered jubilantly through the snow on his way down, then skidded and began to slide, then finally wrapped himself up in a loop, tail in his mouth, and came tumbling head-over-heels to the bottom. He landed upside-down in a great explosion of snow, all four legs waving joyously.

Still paddling at the air, he tilted back his head to see where he'd landed. He beheld (upside-down) dragons and Hunters alike staring at him blankly. He shrank a little, with an uneasy snort.

Firstbourne understood perfectly why humans sometimes facepalmed. She would have slapped herself in the head with her own wing, if there hadn't been so many Hunters around. Trust Lightning to destroy the cherished draconian heritage of dignity.

Earth was less restrained. Plodding over to Lightning, he gave his younger brother a reproachful cuff in the head with one foreclaw. Lightning keened indignantly and writhed in place, kicking up a wave of snow that sent Earth stumbling back, sneezing. Then the smaller dragon scrambled to his feet and fled.

 _Please let Earth be the mature one,_ thought Firstbourne desperately. _Please let him shake it off_ —

Annnnnd nope. Now Earth was thundering after Lightning, roaring bloody murder. Ice shimmied in place for a moment, struggling to contain herself—she _lived_ for snow—then finally snapped and went streaking off to join the fray. Fire went bounding in her wake. It had taken about thirty seconds to go from dead silence to absolute bedlam.

The Hunters had backed off to a safe distance, looking anxiously between the rampaging dragons and their shabby village. Luckily, the dragons had enough sense to keep their distance from anything they could smash. After watching for a while, the Hunters also realized that this wasn't a blood fight—the dragons were just bouncing off each other harmlessly, flinging snow about with their wings and snouts, plowing up sprays of it with their claws.

"I think they're _playing_ ," said Jet Jack, while Firstbourne mentally dug a large hole in the ground and buried her head in it forever. "I didn't know dragons played."

Muzzle gabbled something, pointing to Fire, who was sliding down a snow-covered dune headfirst.

"You're right, it does," said Daddy No-Legs, scratching his head. "Maybe we should give it a try!"

Faith considered making some complaints as the other Hunters began to mill about, scrabbling up dunes, looking for something to protect from sand burns, and packing experimental snowballs. She thought better of it, though. Ten to one nobody would listen to her, and besides—no use ruining their happiness in the name of dignity. It's not like the dragons were in any position to judge.

She stood for a moment, swaying. Then, almost on autopilot, she began to walk. Hunters usually deliberated long and hard before doing anything—it was necessary to be careful, in a realm this cruel. Faith was usually one of the most careful of all. But once in a very great while, there were impulses so powerful that she didn't need to stop and think. She just _knew_. The first time had been tossing aside her past and joining the son of the First Spinjitzu Master. The second time was now.

Skirting a gang of youngsters tearing in circles screeching and piling snow on each other's heads, she approached Firstbourne. The massive dragon had resigned herself, and was now crouching at half-rest, her baby wrapped safely in her tail. Wind was curled up at her mother's side, peacefully dozing.

Faith hesitated, wondering how to properly address a dragon dowager. Respect was probably a good idea.

"Can we speak?" she began. Firstbourne flicked a glance her way, then snorted and looked away again. Faith blinked, stung.

"No?"

Firstbourne gave her another sidewise glance. After a moment she shifted her weight and unfolded one leathery wing. A ragged hole had been torn into the lower edge, taking one of the wing-spurs with it.

Oh.

Faith looked away, acknowledging that she understood the accusation. It's not like she could do much to make up for it, when the bone from that spur now had a hilt and a serrated edge. And was off in another realm.

"In my defense," she said slowly. "You were biting limbs off my leader at the time."

Firstbourne gave an ironic snort. Faith got the feeling it translated to "In _my_ defense, your leader was the one who attacked _me_."

Curse Iron Baron's rapaciousness. She'd never be done cleaning up after it.

"I understand," she said. After a moment she sighed, pulled the glove off her dominant hand, and held it up to Firstbourne. "If it would compensate, you could take one of mine."

Firstbourne turned to look at her as if she'd just transformed into a peculiar alien beast. Her gaze flicked between Faith's hand and her face a few times. At last she rolled her eyes and turned away yet again. She wasn't petty enough to demand literal eye-for-eye digit-for-digit exchange. And it wasn't really about that one spur anyway, she could do without it. It just served as a reminder of everything else they'd done to each other.

Faith waited a moment more, then sighed again and lowered her hand, pulling her glove back on.

"I don't know what else to offer you."

Firstbourne grunted dismissively, watching as Fire and Lightning frolicked on a distant dune.

"I . . . realize we are still in the wrong." Faith lowered her head, forcing humility over her tongue like a bitter sludge. For her people. For the hope of lasting peace. "I realize I cannot use Iron Baron as an excuse for everything. He led us to war against you, but it was all of us who followed him. And we all share the blame for that."

Firstbourne was still looking into the distance, but something about her jawline had softened, showing she was listening.

"And I realize it's your right to resent us," continued Faith quietly. "We have done . . . a lot to hurt you. I know we can't make up for the children you've lost."

Firstbourne tensed, and Faith shut her eyes, knowing that reminding Firstbourne of her slaughtered children was highly dangerous. But she had to do this right. Drag all their grievances into the daylight and address them, so there could be no second thoughts later.

"I'm not asking you to forgive us," said Faith. "But . . . please. Forbear."

Now Firstbourne's head arced around, her ochre eyes pinning Faith to the spot like twin spears. Those were eyes that could lock your gaze at three-quarters of a mile; at close range like this, they _impaled_ you.

"I'm not asking for my sake," said Faith. "I'm asking for my people. Again, you can do whatever you want to me, if you feel it would make this more fair. But spare my Hunters."

Firstbourne stared at her silently.

"I suppose they don't seem like much to you," said Faith, her throat tightening around the already-difficult words. "But they are all I have. They all want to live and be happy, just as you do. They want to be better than we all were before. And they are under my care. I protect them with my life. My life and beyond."

She looked away, harrowed by Firstbourne's unwavering gaze. You didn't need to tell her that her heart was being examined; she felt it. Might as well have started rummaging a rake through her lungs. If she was about to end up like Iron Baron had . . .

Abruptly Firstbourne gave a soft snort. Faith looked up, startled, just in time to see the massive head dip towards her. Gently Firstbourne brought her muzzle to rest against Faith's forehead, the reptilian eyes slipping closed. Her slow, warm breath washed over Faith's chilled skin, ruffling her clothes. Feeling her heart turn to water, Faith placed one hand against Firstbourne's jaw, returning the gesture of peace.

"Thank you," she whispered.

Firstbourne sighed. She felt every single year of her millennium-long life weighing down on her, but there was a strangely similar weight on Faith's much younger soul. This hadn't done anything for her lost children. The memory of their deaths didn't hurt any less. She knew, on some level, that Faith had watched loved ones die in dragons' jaws, and they weren't coming back either. But now at least there were two hearts to hold the pain. She and this proud, fragile creature had a similar texture of grief; it mixed quietly between them instead of screaming and struggling to turn the gears of vengeance. It felt like coming home to rest.

Firstbourne eventually pulled away. Somehow she and Faith had reached a mutual agreement not to risk eye contact. Faith got unnecessarily thorough about clearing snowflakes from her left sleeve, while Firstbourne glanced back to see how the younger dragons were faring.

They hadn't even slowed down yet. Ice was trying to roll a snowball nearly the size of a hut, until Earth came along and smashed it. Ice squealed furiously and bit him, while Lightning scampered circles around the fracas sneaking in nips wherever he could fit them. Earth lashed his tail just as Lightning got his teeth around it, sending the smaller dragon crashing into Ice's side. Matters escalated.

Firstbourne sighed, shaking her head, then tilted it to eye Faith significantly. Who was she kidding, hers didn't look like much either. She knew what Faith meant.

Faith paused, reading Firstbourne's eyes, then smiled slightly.

"I think we could get to understand each other."


	12. You Make It Feel Like Christmas

**Yeesh. Say fellas, what do life and the Hunters' Dieselnaught have in common? They both feel about the same when they hit you.**

 **Sorry about the long wait! I'm not 100% happy with this chapter still, but it's frigging St. Patrick's Day, this Christmas fic has gotta _finish_. So here we go!**

 **Thank you to everyone who's been reading, reviewing, faving, et cetera! Much appreciated.**

 **Thanks also to ServineLuvr and FireLord54, who listened to me blathering about this plot at 2 AM and were like, "yeah, that doesn't sound like a waste of time, go for it."** **And to a couple others who encouraged me to go for it too.** **I wouldn't have gone through with writing this otherwise.**

 **And I owe that one YouTube commenter wayyyyy back near the beginning of Season 9. I don't remember the name, and I'm not even sure if it was Episode 86 or 87, but at some point they said something like, "the Hunters aren't supposed to be the bad guys, they're just people trying to survive in this realm." And I was like, "dang. Not false." So thanks to that person I spent the rest of the season with the mindset that the Hunters could've been all right, if they just had someone better than Iron Baron to lead them. And that's how I got around to liking them enough to write a story about them.**

 **Heh . . . frankly, this whole thing was just for the Hunters. The ninja were all right, but they were just patched in between to give me an excuse to write about First Realm savages. Heck, for five bucks and a glass of boba I'd absolutely write a whole series about them. They're a lot of fun. ^_^''**

 **Anyways!**

* * *

Firstbourne eventually managed to gather up her brood and be on her way. Although she did score some of Arkade's attempt at Christmas pudding first. It was . . . definitely not prepared correctly, but the combination of spices was right, and Firstbourne wasn't about to turn down the offer. Heck, she was allowed one weakness.

The Christmas preparations had restarted in earnest now, while the excitement about snow continued to froth in the background. Everyone had figured out that snow was good for sliding on, but they had all kinds of wrong ideas about how to do it. Nobody had broken limbs yet, which was already some kind of miracle.

"Are you still doing that, Chief?" asked Chew Toy, as Faith continued patching holes in the granary.

"What else should I be doing?" asked Faith, through a mouthful of nails. "I was getting bored."

"Come onnnnnn, Chief. Enjoy the snow! Turns out it really is like clay, you can stack it forever. A couple of us are buildin' a house out of it over thataway."

"A house?" Faith paused, momentarily interested, then knit her brows when she realized the catch. "But it's just going to melt when it gets warm again."

"Sure, we know that," said Chew Toy. "We're not gonna live in it, it's just because we can."

Faith tilted her head at him silently, more and more bewildered. Since when did Hunters find construction work fun? _Useless_ construction work, for good measure?

Chew Toy sighed at her expression and opened his mouth to explain. He got nowhere; two syllables in he was interrupted by Jet Jack dropping from the sky and bowling him into a snowdrift. Faith winced at the muffled crash and rolled her eyes, continuing her work. Jet Jack had suddenly flipped percentages; now she was _failing_ 95% of her landings. And other Hunters were in the way _strangely_ often.

"Screw you, Jet Jack, I swear you're doin' it on purpose—" Chew Toy had thrashed semi-upright and was trying to straighten his helmet.

"The snow messes up my depth perception!" said Jet Jack glibly.

"Perceive _this_ ," growled Chew Toy, chucking a handful of snow into her face. Thinking he'd won, he dusted off his hands and began to stomp off—only for Jet Jack to recover and tackle him into a second snowdrift.

"Jet Jack!" scolded Faith, stepping aside to avoid the explosion of snow.

"Huh? Oh, hi Chief." Jet Jack yelped as Chew Toy reemerged, parched for vengeance. "Bye Chief!"

"I don't want to see any permanent injuries, you hear me?" Faith called after them both, even though she knew they wouldn't hear a word. She shook her head, frustrated. Those two were as bad as the whelps down in the village's communal nursery. Sometimes she worried how all this nonsense was undermining discipline among the Hunters.

Luckily, nobody seemed to be paying attention today. As Faith walked through the village, all around her she heard chatter and cheerful shouting. A lot of Hunters were trying to figure out how this gift-giving thing worked. They didn't know about wrapping, and nobody had any clue how to preamble such a gesture. People just kind of awkwardly handed each other things, then either stood there stammering or outright fled. The gifts themselves were kinda strange, too. Raggedy baskets or wreaths, mangled pieces of scrap metal that were probably meant to be decorations, old clothing, interesting rocks. It was bizarre. But if nothing else, it was sincere. If you had told Faith six months ago that her vicious, hard-scrabble Hunters would get this enthusiastic about being nice to each other, she would've told you to get some help for that heatstroke.

. . . Honestly, it weirded her out a little. On her way to get some more boards, she spotted Yuko plodding through the snow, dragging a bag of straw and heading for Muzzle's place. She stared after him, puzzled. Surely he couldn't be planning to give that as a gift? The straw pile next to the granary was public property, Muzzle could just get some of his own straw whenever he wanted. That made no sense.

Two minutes later she saw Muzzle heading towards Yuko's house . . . also pulling a bag of straw. What the actual _heck_. Had the entire village lost its collective mind?

She was giving so much thought to this mystery that her vigilance slipped. The next moment she found herself in a snowdrift, surrounded by scattered planks.

"Jet Jack, I will _end you_ —"

"It's the snow glare, honest!" Jet Jack dodged, then dove to a safe distance. "Have you _seen_ how this stuff reflects the sun? I can't see a thing!"

"If I couldn't see a thing, I wouldn't fly!"

"True. You are boring like that." Jet Jack twitched her wings saucily, unintimidated by Faith's glare. After a moment, though, her expression turned serious. "Uh . . . Chief, are you turning blue, or is it just me?"

Faith spared her a frustrated growl. She was covered in snow now, it was melting and soaking into her single shirt, and she was beginning to understand exactly what Redskull meant when he said you could die of the cold.

"Youuuuu really don't look so good . . . " said Jet Jack, clambering to her feet to look closer.

"I'm fine," ground out Faith, her throat tight from fighting shivers. "I'll put on a dry shirt and I'll be fine."

"Uhh—Chief, wait—"

Something about her tone was oddly panicked. Faith paused in gathering up planks and gave her a strange look.

"What?"

"Uhhhhhhh . . . N-nothing. Nothing."

Faith scrutinized her sharply for a long moment. Finally she shook her head, scooped up the last of the wood, and headed onwards. Behind her Jet Jack grimaced and hastily disappeared somewhere.

Faith left the wood by the granary, then went home and gratefully peeled off the ice plaster that passed for her shirt right now. For a moment she longingly considered putting on at least _one_ extra layer, just one. She was so sick of freezing. But then she sternly pushed that thought aside, scolding herself for entertaining such weakness. She'd said no, she had to stick by no, if she didn't keep her word then how would—

—Hoooooooold up a second. Why were half of her shirts missing?

As she rummaged through her ragged collection of clothes, tallying the losses, she realized that the others had been in her house just recently. And they were all pretty fond of extra shirts themselves. So they'd just assumed she wouldn't miss a few? Of all the—

Nope, nope. This couldn't stand. Stealing her stuff was just taking it too far. Yanking on one of her few remaining shirts, she plowed out the door to find the culprit and have _words_ with them.

Soon enough she spotted a knot of Hunters, including her number-one suspect. Jet Jack saw her and hastily ducked to the back of the group.

"Something you want to tell me, Jet Jack?" said Faith, hands on hips. Jet Jack thought about it, then shook her head decisively and edged a little further behind Arkade. The others exchanged awkward looks, clearly aware what was going on. Faith snorted in frustration. Was the entire pack of them in on some kind of joke?

"Does _anyone_ want to tell me something?" she asked, still keeping her voice level. She wasn't about to start yelling just yet, she remembered the incident with the grain buckets. Lesson learned.

The Hunters shifted uncomfortably, elbowing each other and exchanging "no, _you_ go on!" glances. Eventually Chew Toy was shoved to the front. He looked lost for a good long while. Finally he blurted "Just don't be weird about it," jammed a soft bundle of something into Faith's hands, and rapidly retreated to the safety of the group.

Faith looked down at the misshapen tangle of cloth for a minute, then glanced to the others, who grinned knowingly. Now even more confused, Faith held up the bundle and tried to shake it into shape.

It abruptly unrolled, and Faith started. This was one of her shirts. Had they stolen it just to give it back to her? This gift-giving business was really getting insane.

But there was something strange about this . . . On closer inspection, it seemed to actually be two shirts, one inside the other, sewed together. Judging by the crinkling, there was straw or something in between. What was _this_ then?

"It's technically one shirt, see?" said Chew Toy, having regained some of his nerve. "But it's thick, so you stay warm like you were wearing a bunch of 'em."

"Since you were so hung up on not wearing more than one," said No-Legs.

Faith felt like she was processing a lot slower than usual. She turned the thick fabric back and forth, taking in the patched holes and jointed sleeves. She felt . . . _weird_. It was a really strange mixture of feelings. All this time being stubborn about putting on a few extra layers, and instead of just letting her freeze like she deserved, they'd gone to all this extra trouble to try to keep her warm. Criminy. They really knew how to humble a person.

She looked around at the others, who were waiting for her to say something.

"I'm . . . " She sighed, folding the fabric tightly over her hands for resolve. "I don't know if I deserve this."

"Ya don't," said Jet Jack cheerfully. "But Redskull said you might die and stuff, so—you know."

"And we're just giving you the first one," said No-Legs. "If it works, we're going to make them for everybody."

"Putting on eight shirts every morning is kind of a pain," said Chew Toy wryly.

"So . . . are you going to try it on?"

Faith hesitated, then pulled the new shirt on over her existing one. The straw prickled a little bit, but it was _warm_. It was almost scary how instantaneously the breeze stopped cutting through her. She could feel extra heat starting to build up against her skin already, too. Man, no wonder the others had been this into layers.

"So, does it work?" asked Arkade.

"It does," said Faith softly, stroking at the sleeves. "It's a lot warmer. I . . . Thank you."

"Perfect! One for everybody, then," said No-Legs. "Tell us if anything goes wrong, Chief, in case we need to tweak the design."

Faith hesitated—sewing was _very_ low on her list of favorite things—but finally cleared her throat.

"If you're making more," she said, "I could help . . . "

The others exchanged knowing glances, understanding that she was offering what she could in return.

"Sure," said Arkade. "We could use some extra hands."

Faith spent the rest of the afternoon in a little bit of a daze. Every time she looked down at the warm shirt she started feeling weird all over again. If the others had been eager for her to hurry up and die so they could have a shot at leadership themselves, _that_ she would have understood. This? This was sorcery she didn't get.

A bit later in the afternoon, she spotted Muzzle, looking rather disheartened and still dragging a sack of straw. Apparently Yuko hadn't been at home. Faith was about to go up to him, but then she noticed Yuko coming the other way, also with straw. Funnily enough, Muzzle hadn't been at home either.

They were both crossing the same square, both going backwards. They were either going to see each other once they passed or outright run into each other. Faith's first instinct was to intervene here, before it came to knives again.

After a moment, though, she drew back a little and decided to just wait to see what happened. She'd already seen enough today that defied expectations. Maybe there were a few surprises left.

* * *

" _Kidnap the Sandy Claws, beat him with a stick! Lock him up for ninety years, then see what makes him tick!_ "

"Guys, can you cut that out?" interrupted Nya, groaning. "That's just morbid."

"Fiiiiine. How 'bout the one that goes _To heck! With old Santa Claus!_ "

" _When he goes dashing through the snow I hope he FALLS_ —"

"Guys, _quit!_ " Nya whapped Jay's arm reproachfully, since he was closest. "It's Christmas. Be nice."

"We _are_ being nice," said Kai. "Just ask Lloyd."

"Thanks guys, but it's okay." Lloyd had been muffling laughter at the ever-lengthening list of songs making threats against Santa, but now he nodded towards Nya in concession. "We can sing some nice Christmas songs for a change, it's only fair."

"What, sing nice songs? In front of _this_ monster?"

"Don't insult it, Jay! It's not . . . " Nya glanced at the tree they were dragging home and tried not to make a face. " _That_ bad . . . "

They had spent some time that morning getting the popcorn-ball business into swing. They'd set up a stand with a sign saying "Popcorn Balls, 20 cents, Raise Money for the Tree Farm!" And at the bottom, in the very smallest print Jay could get away with, "but just so you know, some of this popcorn may have possibly maybe been on a VERY clean floor. Maybe."

A surprisingly large number of people had paid a little extra for the popcorn, eager to help the farmer out. It probably still wouldn't be enough to keep him afloat till new trees grew, but it was better than nothing. It was nice to see how many people were willing to step up and help each other. Ninjago City had its finer points.

The farmer had been grateful, and had again offered the ninja a tree on the house. Eventually they accepted. Still, by that point all of the half-presentable trees had been sold, so the ninja ended up with an absolute disaster of an evergreen that seemed to be bent double, with branches going in very unorthodox directions. Tie a machete to one branch and you'd have a pretty convincing horror movie star.

"I'm with Jay," admitted Cole, grunting as the tree caught on a snag and stopped moving. "I'd feel kind of weird singing pretty Christmas carols in front of . . . this."

"It's a gift, Cole, don't be rude about it," scolded Nya.

"And besides, it's not _that_ bad," said Kai. "Just a little bit bent." He hauled on one of the lower branches, trying to get the tree moving again. The branch snapped away instead, sending Kai sprawling backwards into the snow. He sighed.

"Well, that's what I get for trying to be nice."

"Yeah, nope," said Jay. "Horrible songs only, out of respect for this tree. Does anyone feel like some good old-fashioned Christmas songs about being alone and having no friends?"

"Uhhhh . . . no."

"How about the ones where literally everyone's romantic betrayal happens exactly on Christmas? I know some obscure ones—"

"No _thanks_ , Kai. Too soon."

"War and stuff?"

"What is wrong with you. No."

"Little kids trying to buy shoes for their dying mom?"

"That's _awful_ ," groaned Lloyd. "Why do people even write these things?"

"I dunno. To honor everyone who's ever had a sucky Christmas, I guess?" Kai propped himself up on his elbows, expression thoughtful. "Woahhhhh. Maybe someday they'll write a drippy depressing Christmas song about _us_. It can be about a bunch of kids who had to fight a ton of bad guys and nearly died a ton of times and awful things happened and they got dragged through apocalypse realms and then they came home and the entire family had to be dewormed."

"Iiiii'm not feeling the radio hit potential on that one," said Lloyd, while the others muffled giggles.

"You kidding?" Kai flopped back again. "Number one on the charts for three weeks; 'Santa, Don't Pass Us By, It's Not Contagious, We Swear.'"

"Okay, seriously, can we not talk about it?"

"It's banned in like twenty countries for being 'unnecessarily graphic'—"

"Oh, for the _love_ of—" Lloyd chucked a snowball that finally succeeded in shutting Kai up. Then he easily dodged Kai's return shot. Peeved, Kai finally found the motivation to get up and go after him. The others exchanged glances, then left the tree and went to join in. They were really pushing their luck, trying to enjoy themselves; prime way to tempt Ninjago into throwing more disasters at their heads. But, so far at least, their luck had held.

* * *

A few hours later, a glowing portal opened up over the same meadow where the ninja had been dragging their tree home. Firstbourne came plunging out, landing heavily on all fours and kicking up troughs of earth and snow. She lowered her head, flopped out her wings, and just panted for a moment. Man, these realm crossings seriously took it all out of you. Now she remembered why she didn't do this routinely.

But she didn't want to leave Wu and the others hanging, after she'd given them so much cause to worry. She could rest after she'd brought them the good news.

Stretching wearily and tucking her wings away, she studied the meadow she'd landed in. The snow was all plowed up and littered with footprints, and there were a few snowmen perched off to one side. Firstbourne sniffed at them. What luck! The ninja had been here not too long ago. Score one for the old dragon instincts.

With a final stretch, she began to lope along the trail of footprints and scuffed snow indicating where the ninja had continued onwards with their tree. She didn't know where their headquarters was, but between this and her ability to sense Wu, she'd figure it out.

* * *

"Cole, what the heck? That's upside-down!"

"No it isn't!"

"Yes it _is._ Look, that's the trunk there!"

"Oh yeah? Then what's _this?_ "

Setting up the tree was proving unusually controversial. Cole, Jay, and Lloyd all had strong opinions about how to position the battered evergreen so it looked at least _somewhat_ like a tree. Meanwhile, the others were fetching the decorations.

Nya dragged over the box of ornaments, which jingled ominously. Kai winced.

"Hey." He sat down across from Nya, who was again fiddling with the tape atop the box. "I, uh . . . Sorry I broke them."

"'s all right." Nya sighed. "They're just ornaments."

"Yeah, but . . . I get it, it kinda sucks that they all survived that many ship crashes, and then they have to get wrecked just taking 'em out of the attic." Kai shifted uncomfortably. "And, you know . . . what with all the memories attached, and stuff . . . "

"Ah, maybe that just makes it better that they got destroyed." Nya gave him a tired smile. "I mean, what do we wanna remember the good times for? So we get a better idea of how messed-up we are _now?_ "

"We're not _that_ messed-up," said Kai, without much conviction. He'd just spent the other night convincing Lloyd they were too traumatized for Christmas.

"Listen. I know what it's like now, to think almost everyone I care about is dead," said Nya softly. "For a whole week, we thought you guys were dead. Gone. We were hanging on because we had to, there were no other options, but—I still remember what that feels like. Waking up every morning and realizing you were _gone_. I was never gonna see you again."

Kai flinched and reached over to squeeze her hand.

"Well . . . I wasn't, though. That counts for something."

"I know. This time we got lucky," said Nya, squeezing back. "Really lucky. But someday . . . someday it's gonna happen for real. Someday our luck's gonna run out. The way our lives go? Probably pretty soon. And now I know what it's going to feel like. It's a—it's a lot."

"Don't . . . don't think like that, sis . . . " Kai tried to swallow away the sudden dryness in his mouth. Lloyd's dark hints from the other night were suddenly ringing loud in his ears. The day when their luck ran out might be coming up sooner than Nya expected. It hurt even more to think that if the worst really did happen this time, his little sister would already have had practice with that kind of pain.

"Hey," he said at last. "Look. I'm here now. We're all here now. And—and maybe someday we won't be. But it'll suck bad enough when it actually happens. It doesn't have to ruin everything for us _now_ too."

"Easier said than done," mumbled Nya, plucking at a loose strand of packing tape.

"I know," said Kai. "I know, it sucks. But come on. We've gotta try. We're here for now. Let's make the most of it. Can we at least try?"

Nya hesitated, rolling the strip of tape between her fingers. Finally she sighed and looked up to Kai, nodding.

"Yeah." She gave him a tired but resolute smile. "Okay. Let's try."

Kai gave her an equally resolute smile. He knew his sister well; he could pick up the shifts in her mood, track the dull flicker of hope slowly returning to her eyes. She always said that Kai had looked out for her when they were little and fending for themselves, but privately he knew she'd been the one really pulling them through. She'd always been the more hopeful sibling. If she needed a nudge in return now, he was more than happy to come through.

"Well, let's have a look then." Recovered from the brief crash in the mood, Nya reached again for the ornaments box. "See if any of these are still in shape for . . . hanging . . . "

She trailed off, looking around the room. Kai followed her lead, and started when he realized the others had finished with the tree and had been listening quietly for who _knows_ how long.

" _What_ ," he said, reddening.

"You have your inspirational moments," said Cole, only a touch wryly.

"Ughhhhhhhhh." Kai dragged a cushion off the sofa and pulled the corners down over his ears. "Shut up."

He didn't miss Lloyd's look of silent gratitude, though. When the younger ninja passed within range Kai reached over to ruffle up his hair.

The ornaments were in pretty bad shape, but they decided to hang the broken tops of them as if nothing had happened. Everyone except Zane and PIXAL quickly found that thick garden gloves were a good idea.

"Welp." Lloyd stood back and looked over the finished project. "Here we go. An Eldritch abomination covered in broken glass."

"Fitting?" said Zane wryly.

"Heh. Maybe."

They all studied the tree for a moment, trying to figure out how to take this dystopian monstrosity.

"I mean . . . huh." Jay leaned over the back of the sofa. "It's _metal_ , but you know, it's . . . actually not that bad."

"Yeah, honestly. It sorta looks cool," said Cole, tilting his head. The ornaments had mostly shattered into odd half-globes or jagged strips, leaving at least some glass attached to the ring at the top. They all had silvery insides, which reflected the light just as well as the colored outsides. The flat surfaces caught every passing breeze, sending the whole tree glinting and sparkling.

"Huh. Broken, but they still get the job done." Nya folded her arms. "I feel like there's a metaphor in there somewhere."

"And they still look pretty good doing it," supplied Kai, grinning lopsidedly.

"And now that they're broken, you can find things inside that you didn't know were there," said PIXAL, tapping lightly at an ornament with silver swirls on the inside.

"But if you get too close, they'll cut you!" said Jay cheerfully. He got some strange looks. "Whaaaaat?"

"Good metaphor," conceded Lloyd, finally.

"Well then. Since we're all so hardcore now," said Cole. "Time for depressing Christmas songs. Kai, I hope you actually came up with some lyrics for that one they're gonna write about us . . . "

* * *

Wu was a fellow of excellent tact. When Firstbourne plopped a thrashing, squalling, very-much-recovered dragon youngling at his feet, he didn't ask questions at all. He just smiled knowingly and rubbed the side of Firstbourne's jaw, letting her know that he understood and was proud. She grumbled half-heartedly and permitted herself to lean into his hand. Screw it all, she needed a freaking rest. She'd let her favorite tiny human get away with being right. Just this once.

Meanwhile, Lloyd was puttering around in the hallway, trying to convince some tinsel that tape was a real thing and should be respected.

"Hey Lloyd, Lloyd." Abruptly Kai came skidding in and pressed something into his hand. "Quick, hold this!"

He disappeared before Lloyd could say anything. The green ninja looked uneasily at his hand.

"Is this beef jerky? . . . "

The next second a small green tangle of limbs and tail came leaping through the door, zeroing in on the jerky with manic fervor.

It quickly turned out that little baby dragons with tiny razor teeth had no respect for fingers. Zero. Once Lloyd had finished bleeding, and Cole had finished yelling at Kai for having these _great_ ideas, and Kai had finished sputtering "I thought it would be cute, _okay_ , how was I supposed to know—", Energy had already grown bored and fallen asleep. Lloyd crouched next to her and stroked her back lightly with his non-bandaged hand. When she didn't wake up, he sat down and went on petting. Kai settled next to him, looking guilty despite all his vehement self-defense a minute ago.

"Did not know that was gonna happen," he ventured.

"I'll live. At least I didn't lose any," said Lloyd, waggling his bandaged fingers ruefully. He offered a smile to Kai's disconsolate look. "And it _would_ have been pretty cute. If she didn't bite."

"Don't encourage him," scolded Nya, sitting down on Lloyd's other side. "My brother _really_ needs to get a handle on the idea that spontaneity and the ninja lifestyle don't mix."

Lloyd snorted.

"And what? Actually start thinking before he acts, or something?"

"I guess. If you still believe in miracles," deadpanned Nya.

"Heyyyyyyyy." Kai huffed overdramatically as his two younger siblings muffled giggles. "Give me some credit! I'm getting better. Come on, name me the last time I did something totally reckless and life-threatening."

"This morning," said Nya instantly. Both Kai and Lloyd gave her puzzled looks.

"This morning?" said Kai. "I didn't do anything even a little tiny bit dangerous."

"You tackled Lloyd into a snowdrift," said Nya flatly. "Remember what happened to Cole when he jumped Lloyd unexpectedly?"

Kai and Lloyd exchanged a wide-eyed look.

"We were all waiting for you to get blown to bits," continued Nya. "You got _lucky_."

"Geez . . . " Kai scruffed up his hair, visibly still working through that realization. "I hadn't even thought of that."

"I didn't either," said Lloyd. "That one time with Cole, that was reflex, but this time . . . I don't know, I didn't even think of attacking. I knew I didn't have to."

"Well hey, that's great," said Nya, brightening. "That means you're not waiting for an attack 24-7 anymore. You're getting better."

"I . . . guess . . . " Lloyd ruffled Energy's crest absently. After a moment he gave a rueful laugh. "I guess that's a little pathetic though, huh? 'Oh hey, you don't instantly try to kill anyone who touches you. Progress!'"

"I mean . . . " Kai shrugged. "At least it _is_ progress."

"Better than nothing," agreed Nya quietly. "Give it some time. Maybe someday things will calm down and we'll all get better, huh?"

Lloyd smiled faintly, his eyes distant. Predictably, the thought that they might not _have_ that kind of time ghosted across his mind. He clearly wasn't about to get rid of that one. Stuck with it till the worst actually happened.

Energy squirmed in her sleep and thumped one foot, whimpering. After a moment's hesitation, Lloyd gathered her up off the floor and into his lap. He stroked her back soothingly until she sighed and went still again, nestling her chin into his shoulder.

He didn't even care, he decided. If they really didn't have that kind of time—if they all died tomorrow—worse, if only _some_ of them died tomorrow—that was tomorrow's problem. Like Kai had said, they were all here now. They were close to happy. He was holding a baby dragon pulled back from the brink of death, because some folks he'd never even met decided to be decent for a change. There was at least some glimmer of hope that things might get better, maybe. Somehow. Someday.

The others must have sensed him relaxing. Nya sighed contentedly, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. Kai leaned on him from the other side, smiling as he traced one finger lazily along the outlines of Energy's tiny scales. Meanwhile off in the next room, Cole and Zane were trying to teach PIXAL the words to "Where Are You, Christmas?" by singing it as mournfully as possible, while Jay went around the room searching under sofa cushions and hollering "Christmas? CHRISTMAS! You can come out now!"

. . . Yeeeeeeeah. It was hard to fear the future, right now. Lloyd shut his eyes and let the moment last.

* * *

The snowfall in the First Realm had paused in the late morning, but as evening drew closer it started again. The number of broken limbs was miraculously still zero (although one prosthetic arm had been detached), and the roof of the snow house had fallen in seven times and finally been abandoned as hopeless. It was a good thing the Hunters were taking this whole "be nice for Christmas" thing seriously, because otherwise Jet Jack would definitely have been lynched by now. The snow was making her a little crazy.

Honestly, it was making everyone a little crazy. They'd inevitably gotten around to the idea that you could throw the stuff, and by now there was a continuous low-key snowball fight going on across the entire village. It never escalated to knives, though, which was a whole 'nother miracle all on its own. Things were strange in Dead's End these days.

And then there was Faith, trudging through the village dragging a ladder. Snow? What snow? There were more holes in the granary walls, dag nabbit.

Along the way, she spotted Redskull. He could usually walk through the village confidently, but now he seemed to be having a little trouble—he was going more hesitantly than usual, trailing his fingers along the wall of a hut. Faith winced when a stray snowball caught him in the shoulder, startling him into stumbling.

For a moment she hesitated. Offering help was really not a Hunter's kind of thing. Historically, they'd all been more interested in complicating life for the old blind man. He was weak, an easy target. And he was bound to start lecturing her again, or nagging her about who knows what . . . But it was Christmas, wasn't it? And she kind of owed the universe right now, didn't she.

Sighing, she shifted the ladder to one shoulder and headed over. Redskull was brushing snow from his hood and grumbling, but he stopped when he heard her approaching. She noticed the way his mouth pressed into a guarded line, one hand tightening slightly on the head of his cane. She bit her lip. This was why they all swore to become better. So that maybe someday they wouldn't have to be afraid of each other.

She didn't know what to say, though. This was new terrain.

"Having trouble?" she ventured at last. Redskull relaxed at her tone and offered a tight smile.

"Oh, nothing much, really. Just a little harder to count steps when the ground's changed like this. Throws you off!"

"Do you . . . ahh . . . want some help getting home?"

"Oh, I'm not going home," said Redskull. "I was hoping to take a walk. I do enjoy this weather—reminds me of when I was a boy."

Faith was going to reply, but was startled out of it by a gaggle of youngsters screeching by, nearly clipping the two adults.

"But it's just a little chaotic around here!" grumbled Redskull. He was smiling, though, and after a moment he gave a wistful laugh. "Ah, they must be enjoying themselves. That reminds me of when I was a boy too . . . "

Faith searched for her usual irritation with Redskull's nostalgia, and couldn't find it.

"Do you want to come with me, then?" she said at last. "We could find someplace calmer. I'm going to the granary."

"With a ladder, eh?" said Redskull, pricking an ear as they began to walk. "The granary roof would suit me just fine, actually."

Faith ducked as a snowball narrowly missed her cheek. Now that Redskull mentioned it, the granary roof sounded _great_.

She set up the ladder, and the two of them clambered up to the gently sloping edge of the roof, escaping the barely-contained chaos down below.

"Ahh, much better." Redskull settled down and brushed snow off his shirt. "Appreciated, Chief."

Faith hummed idly in acknowledgment. Technically she was supposed to get to work on the granary now, but she didn't feel inclined. It was nice to get a break from dodging snowballs, and somehow, oddly, she was in no rush to leave Redskull's placid company. She watched as he held up one palm to feel the snowflakes drifting into it.

"Faith," he said quietly, after a moment. "I hate to ask you for a second favor . . . "

"No, it's . . . that's all right."

"Would you mind describing the village to me?" said Redskull, turning his shrouded face towards her. "I think I remember how it used to look when it snowed. But I'm not sure if I remember right or not."

Ouch. Her heart had no business squeezing like that.

"Oh, you don't have to give me that look." Redskull laughed. "I get along just fine, most days I don't even miss seeing. The old memory just needs a bit of a boost right now, and then I'll see everything in my mind's eye. Probably better than the real thing."

Faith offered a wan half-smile, somehow knowing he would sense it, then turned towards the snow-covered roofs. She did _not_ have confidence in her descriptive skills, but . . .

"Well, it's . . . white. Obviously," she began, feeling a little bit of an idiot. "And . . . you know, it piles up on the roofs. I guess it's about ankle-deep now."

"Mm-hmmm," said Redskull softly.

"Uhhh . . . " Dang, all out of words already. "Well, there's some more falling right now. It's coming down pretty hard. I guess it'll keep up for a while more."

She trailed off, and for a while there was silence. Feeling like she'd cheated Redskull just a bit with that description, she scoured the village with her eyes, trying to think of something else to say. What had the others been so hung up on?

"Everything's smoother," she ventured, at last. "The snow sort of makes things lose their shape. And . . . it sparkles. It's not too light outside right now, but when you move your head everything glitters."

She was really starting to feel stupid now (sparkles? What kind of sissy stuff—), but when she snuck a glance at Redskull she forgot about that. He was smiling, but it wasn't scornful. Just a dreamy, listening smile. She felt like she could say anything and he wouldn't laugh at her for it.

"It's . . . the sun's almost setting," she said, abandoning any attempts to filter. "It's starting to drop below the clouds on the horizon. It just got a little brighter than it was a minute ago, and . . . it's turning pink. Everything. All the snow on the ground is pink, and the roofs are pink on the light side and blue in the shadows. And the snow that's still falling is lit up from the side, so it glows, and you can see the wind making waves through it . . . And . . . " She paused for a few breaths. Something seemed to unlock.

"It's beautiful," she said quietly. And now she was _really_ all out of words.

"That's just how I remember it," murmured Redskull. "Thank you. That was perfect."

Faith didn't know if she replied or not. The landscape had consumed her. "Perfect" wasn't a word that got thrown around a lot in the First Realm, but it definitely had to be the word here. Just for a moment, everything was right. She couldn't remember what had been terrible yesterday, or worry about what might go wrong tomorrow. There was just her, Redskull, everyone she knew safe and contented and getting along, and the sparkle of sunset against the snow.

Redskull had turned his face back towards the sky. Letting out a dizzy breath, Faith lay back against the roof and gave herself up to the sensation. Flecks of white swirled in her vision, a glittering column all the way back up to the clouds.

Perfect. What a feeling.


End file.
